


If I could reach the stars

by kellsbells



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-19 16:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9449711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellsbells/pseuds/kellsbells
Summary: Alex was dead. Alex was dead. Kara couldn't stand it, so she did the only thing she could. She turned back time to save the life of the woman she loves. But Alex doesn't know, and Kara is slowly falling apart at the seams as she watches her foster sister fall in love with someone else.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work for this fandom, so I hope you'll be kind to a newbie. There is both SuperCorp and Sanvers in this fic, but neither are endgame, so please don't shout at me about that. This is a Kalex fic, so if that's not your thing, please don't read. And many, many thanks to my wonderful beta reader, Splendonia.

* * *

 

Kara Danvers gently set the limp body of her foster sister on a stretcher. Alex’s white, bloodied face was slack, and a DEO agent pulled a sheet over it reverently. Kara held back a howl with difficulty. The agents pushed the body to a nearby van as Kara watched, fists clenched. 

 

"Kara, I'm so sorry..." Hank began, and he was openly weeping. Any other day Kara would have hugged him, would have comforted the man who had become a surrogate father to her, a replacement for Jeremiah and for Zor-El. But not today. 

 

"I have to go," she said, and she took off, knowing that her hasty departure wouldn't hurt the Martian. The Martians were a hardy race, White or Green, and she might knock him over, but it wouldn’t concuss him as it might a human. Humans were so… fragile. She pushed the thought of Alex’s faltering heartbeat away, breaking the sound barrier as she headed straight up. She’d heard about this in Kal’s fortress, of all places. Kelex had told her what Clark did, when Lex caused the earthquake that killed Lois Lane. Or at least, it had the _first_ time. She reached the edge of the atmosphere and turned, hovering, as she heard Kal-El approach her. She sighed. It would have been too good to be true, had he not turned up to stop her.  

 

“Jesus, Kara. I’m so sorry,” he said, and he, too, was weeping. He’d loved Alex, had come by often as if to try to make up for dumping Kara with the Danvers family.

 

“It’s not necessary to be sorry. It won’t stand, Kal-El. I won’t let it.” Her voice sounded alien to her own ears.

 

“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning. He was suddenly her lecturing older cousin. Except he wasn’t older; she had been trapped in the Phantom Zone for 24 years with only the thought of protecting him to sustain her. Maybe physically she’d been in stasis, but mentally she’d lived that time. He had no idea what that had been like. He had no idea what she’d sacrificed for him already; she should be at peace, in Rao’s light with her parents, but instead she was here, living this life in a world that was too loud, too bright, too _everything_ , and now he was going to lecture her about saving the one person who had made her life on earth bearable? For doing exactly what he’d done for a woman he’d known for five minutes? It made her blood boil, and she felt her eyes dry and heat simultaneously, tell-tale signs that she was ready to lose control of her heat vision. She held a hand up, meeting his eyes directly, and his widened upon seeing the red lines surrounding hers.

 

“Kal. Whatever you’re going to say, I suggest you think very carefully before opening your mouth. On Krypton, we listened to our elders before we spoke. So hear me, last son of Krypton. The reason I am here on this planet you call home is because my parents and yours wished for you to be protected. I was trapped in a land of endless nothing for 24 years because when the planet I lived on exploded, killing every single soul I had ever loved, I was knocked into the Phantom Zone. I have lost everything, Kal-El. I lost my parents, my world, all in moments. I came to this planet speaking a language that instantly became dead. I had to learn to live again, a woman in a child’s body. In return, you left me with your friends, because you couldn’t ‘handle’ a child. You were the only thing left of my planet and you _abandoned_ me. Alexandra Danvers is the only reason I still live, Kal-El. So if you want to try to stop me from doing this, Kal, you will have to send me into Rao’s light yourself. Because I am doing this.”

 

He stared at her for a small eternity before his shoulders loosened.

 

“If you’re doing this, I’m doing it with you,” he said, and smiled. She smiled back, and they took each other’s hands as they began to speed in the opposite direction to the world’s axis, their joined gravity fields somehow messing with the space-time continuum on a local level. The Earth slowed, stopped turning, and turned back. When it slowed and began turning the right way again, Alexandra Danvers was alive. But not for long.

 

Kara turned to look at Kal, their hands still joined.

 

“She’s still in danger, Kal. She could still…”

 

“It’s okay, Kara. We can save her. El Mayarah, remember?” He shot her his winning grin, the one that was on the covers of all the magazines. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She told him about the alien, the Hellgrammite, how he’d heard how Alex had killed his mate. Alex had beaten a much larger alien with her bare hands in battle, and this… animal had attacked her, hit her from behind with those spikes of his, and while she was lying helpless he had crushed her chest with his fists. He had no honour.  Kara had heard Alex’s heart stop. She had heard Alex’s weak cries as she tried to push her body away from the alien, and Kara wasn’t there. Kara was too slow. She’d been working on a story and she got caught up.

 

“It’s okay, cuz,” Kal said, suddenly hovering in front of her and wiping her eyes gently with his thumbs. “We’ve got this. I’ll get the alien, you get the girl.”

 

It was an odd echo of what she’d said not long ago to Alex, about Maggie Sawyer. She shook her head to clear the dissonance of those thoughts. Alex was her sister, not her…

 

“Let’s go,” she said, shortly, and they shot down towards the site of the Hellgrammite’s attack, leaving twin sonic booms in their wake.

 

***

 

With Kal’s help, the fight was over almost before it had begun. Kara swooped in as the Hellgrammite landed, grabbing Alex at full super-speed, pulling her close and flying her behind a nearby DEO armoured SUV. Kal taunted the Hellgrammite before knocking him out to general applause, while Alex hammered her fists against Kara’s chest, trying to get her to let go.

 

“What did you do that for? I was all over it! I killed the other one, you know I’m capable,” Alex said, and Kara loosened her hold enough that she could see Alex’s face – Alex’s red, annoyed face. Alex was alive, and she could be mad at Kara forever, because she was alive and that was all that mattered. Kara smiled at her, heedless of the tears pouring down her cheeks. Alex was alive.

 

“Kara? Why are you crying?” Alex asked, more gently, and it just spurred Kara into more intense weeping. “Why is Clark here? What happened? Please, tell me,” she said, and Kara collapsed into her arms. She heard Alex’s heart speed up in alarm, and her foster sister opened the SUV’s back door and pulled Kara inside where they could cuddle in private without half the DEO’s forces watching. Kara cried so hard that if she were human, she might have needed sedation. As it was, Alex holding her and talking to her quietly about bio-engineering and the Kryptonian genome first calmed her and then sent her to sleep. When she woke, she was in her own bed with Alex spooning her, the way she woke so many mornings. Alex was alive.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark comes to talk to Kara about turning back time, and Alex tries to coax Kara into talking by unfair and improper use of potstickers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't be updating every day, but I just wanted to get this chapter out as the first one was just a taster. I have cobbled together a history for Kara and Superman which includes bits from the original Superman movies (namely the earthquake and Lois' death) and from Man of Steel/BvS (Darkseid and Superman's death and inevitable resurrection). Hopefully it all makes sense.

* * *

 

It was two days later, and Kara was working on another environmental story that Snapper had assigned to her after the pelican thing. He was punishing her, but she wasn’t going to crumble. She’d lasted over two years as Cat Grant’s assistant. She wouldn’t fail now.

 

Her computer beeped and she looked up to see an instant message from Clark.

 

_Clark: Hey Kara. How are you? We didn’t get to talk after the other day._

_Kara: I know. I’m sorry. I owe you my thanks, Clark._

_Clark: That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Could we meet tonight? Lois is in Tokyo covering a story so I can stay, if you wouldn’t mind lending me your couch._

_Kara: Sure, Clark. See you tonight._

 

She smiled as she thought about her cousin coming into town again. She just hoped he wasn’t going to lecture her. She hadn’t taken the decision to alter the timeline lightly. She sighed and started in on the last paragraph of her story, and with a little superspeed she had it done and in Snapper’s inbox, ready to be decimated, in a few minutes.

 

She rescued three cats from trees (seriously, would they ever learn not to climb them?) and a family from a car wreck before heading home. She hadn’t been home long when there was a knock at the door. She lowered her glasses and used her x-ray vision to see Alex pacing outside the door nervously. She sighed deeply and went to answer the door. She had been avoiding Alex pretty successfully since her meltdown after she and Kal had turned back time.

 

“Kara, hey,” Alex said, frowning as Kara turned away without looking her in the eye.

 

“Hey, Alex,” she said, quietly. She had no clue how to handle this. She couldn’t tell Alex what she’d done – Alex would never forgive her for misusing her powers that way. And she didn’t want Alex to read anything into what she’d done. She just couldn’t live without her sister. She’d lost a whole planet and her second father already. Surely that was enough punishment for one lifetime?

 

“You haven’t been answering when I’ve called. Or my text messages. And I invited you for potstickers last night. You never miss out on potstickers, Kara. What’s wrong?” Alex asked, taking off her coat and sitting on the couch next to Kara.

 

“I… I just haven’t been feeling the best. I’ve been busy at work and I just wanted to sleep,” Kara mumbled, and Alex was touching her face, suddenly, checking her temperature and shining a flashlight in her eyes. Kara pulled away, flushing. She couldn’t lie to Alex; she’d never been able to.

 

“What’s wrong, Kara?” Alex repeated, more strongly. Kara winced.

 

“Alex, I just… I needed some time, to…”

 

There was a knock at the door and Kara jumped up to answer. It was Clark.

 

“Hey, Kal,” Kara said, smiling, and Alex stood to greet him. They hugged and Alex looked at both of them.

 

“What brings you here, Clark?” Alex asked, with a tight smile.

 

“I came to talk to Kara, actually. You know, Super stuff,” he said, making a flying gesture with a goofy smile. Alex smiled back icily.

 

“I… I guess I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said, and she went to retrieve her coat. She pulled Kara into a hug, whispering in her ear, “We will talk about this later.” Kara shivered, pulling the sleeves of her cardigan down and rubbing her arms. 

 

“Bye, Alex,” Kal said with a smile, and Alex smiled again before giving Kara one of her patented “I’m watching you,” looks, closing the door behind her. Kara collapsed against the door, taking a deep breath.

 

“So, things are going well between you and Alex, huh?” Clark asked, with a smile. Kara punched him in the arm and he blanched. “You know, Kara, I think you might want to keep in mind that you’re stronger than I am,” he said, wincing as he rubbed his arm. “That’s going to bruise.”

 

“You big wimp,” she said, scoffing. “Anyway, you deserved it. You know she would kill me if she found out what I did. You can’t go mocking me. I hate lying to Alex.”

 

“I know,” he said, pulling her into a tight hug and kissing her on the head. She loved Kal’s hugs. He was one of the few people who were strong enough to hug her so that she could really feel it, and for her to hug back properly.

 

“Hey, Kara, could you lay off a little? I think my rib just cracked,” Kal wheezed. She let him go and smiled. He was such a joker.

 

“So how are you doing?” he asked, as she handed him a pile of take-out menus. He perused them while she thought.

 

“I guess I’m okay. I haven’t really… processed, what happened, I don’t think?” she said, and he nodded.

 

“When Lex… when the earthquake happened, I thought I would never be able to look at Lois again. She was in a car, and it had fallen into this fissure made by the earthquake, and she had… she was buried. I know exactly how you felt,” he said, and she saw the hint of tears in his eyes.

 

“Well, not exactly,” she blustered, adjusting her glasses. “I mean, Lois is the love of your life, you know? Alex is my sister. It’s not the same.”

 

“Isn’t it?” he asked, his eyes more piercing as he took off his glasses and set them aside. She looked away.

 

“I better go order – they’re gonna need some time to make all of these potstickers,” she said, and went to call her usual takeout place. There was a startled pause on the other end of the line when she asked for double her usual order, but they’d been dealing with Kara for a while, and were more or less used to the size of her food orders. It was just as well that Cat Grant had added in a food stipend to her new contract, without saying anything, of course. But it was a significant amount and it had allowed Kara to start saving a little money for a rainy day, finally, instead of spending all of her money on food.

 

She got some bottles of water from the fridge, handing one to Kal, and sitting down beside him.

 

“You know, when I left you with the Danvers, I told you that your house was going to be joined with theirs. It occurred to me, a little while ago, that as a young Kryptonian girl that might have meant something different to you than it did to me, or at least back then. I’ve had a thorough education in Kryptonian culture since then,” Kal said, with a laugh.

 

“Yes, well, you still need to work on your sentence structure, Kal, and your accent is completely atrocious,” she said, not liking where this was going. He smiled gently and took her hand.

 

“I meant that they were going to adopt you. But that’s not what you thought, was it?” he asked, and she looked up at him, playing with the rims of her glasses once again.

  
“No,” she admitted. “You were my elder, or I felt like you were, at least,” she said. “I believed you, and never thought that you might not really understand our culture. I mean, I knew you couldn’t speak Kryptonese well, but I figured that was just lack of practise. It never occurred to me that you meant adoption and not betrothal. I mean, that was a whole different thing,” she mused.

 

“So you thought you and Alex were going to be married once you reached your majority?” he asked, softly, and she nodded.

 

“I was heartbroken when she went out with her first boyfriend. I cried for weeks, and I couldn’t explain to Eliza why I was upset, because it was sort of her fault, and yours,” she said, glaring at him. “And I couldn’t tell Alex, obviously. Sexuality wasn’t any sort of an issue on Krypton, not like it is here, but I realised that same-sex relationships weren’t as accepted here, and then Alex had a boyfriend, so she obviously wasn’t interested in me. But now, she’s…” Kara trailed off, taking off her glasses and wiping at her eyes.

 

“She’s?” Kal prompted, and she turned to look at him.

 

“She has a girlfriend, Kal. She’s gay. She could have been my spouse, if she was interested in me, if we hadn’t been brought up the way we were…” Kara stood and began to pace, still fiddling with her glasses, swinging them by one leg distractedly. “I put a lot of it to the back of my mind after her first boyfriend. I figured that in the context of my life here on earth, I should try to think of her as my sister. And I tried, Kal. I really did. But it just never felt right to me. She was my whole world when I got here; the only reason I was able to make it this far.”

 

She didn’t see Kal-El grimace.

 

“She held me when I cried, and she taught me how to control my powers. She has been my whole life, and I’ve been hers, but now she’s met this girl Maggie and she has a life away from me, Kal. I don’t know how to do this, now.”

 

She sat down, slumping, and Kal-El put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close.

 

“You don’t know that she doesn’t feel that way about you, Kara. Not for sure,” he said, and she shook her head, staring at her hands.

 

“If she did, why hasn’t she said anything?” she asked, and he pulled back and raised an eyebrow.

 

“Why haven’t you?” he asked, perfectly reasonably, and she sighed.

 

The doorbell rang, just then, and they ate and watched a movie on Netflix before Kal turned to her again.

 

“You know, there is only one person on this earth that I would have turned back time to save, Kara. And that was Lois. If you had died, or my mom, I wouldn’t have saved you. I would have mourned. But it was only with Lois that I lost my head that much. What you feel for Alex is rare, Kara. That kind of love – she deserves to know.”

 

“I want her to know, Kal. But what if I tell her and I spoil our relationship? I almost lost her when she went to college – she was so distant and everything was different. I couldn’t stand for that to happen again.”

 

“I know you’ve lost a lot, Kara. I know you’ve lost everything. But you can’t love without the possibility of loss,” he said, and she smiled at him.

 

“Thanks, Clark. I… thank you. For helping me save her. I know you didn’t want to.”

 

“El Mayarah, Kara Zor-El,” he said, with a serious look on his face. She nodded, and they went back to watching Netflix until she fell asleep on the couch. Kal-El carried her to bed and kissed her forehead before going to sleep on the couch.

 

When Kara woke the next morning, she had decided. What she felt for Alex had to stay under wraps. She wasn’t going to risk their relationship for something that might never be. Sure, Alex might be gay but that didn’t mean she felt that way about Kara. She’d been brought up to think of Kara as her sister, and she hadn’t had any misunderstandings like Kara’s Kryptonian culture to trip her up. There was no reason to think that Alex might return her feelings, and there was no reason to risk their relationship.

 

Before she had time to even go say good morning to Kal, she heard the distant sound of sirens. She was in her suit and out the window before a human could have completed a full blink. As she sped towards the sound, she heard Kal-El come up next to her and grinned. She loved superhero team-ups!

 

Their early morning fire-fighting set the mood for the entire day. Something big and political had happened and the President was making a speech later that day, and Snapper was tearing his remaining hair out because they couldn’t get a statement from the President’s people. Kara was tempted to call Olivia on the number she’d given to Supergirl during her recent visit, but then Snapper called her “blonde ponytail” again and she decided he could get the President’s private number himself, with his winning personality. Plus he’d sent her environmental piece back with so many corrections that it looked like a redacted NSA document. She left him to stew in her own juices and went to interview several of the city council staffers who were involved in the environmental story, in lieu of spending hours of soul-crushing work on a second draft that would probably come back looking even worse than the first. She was exhausted by the time she got home – there had been four separate incidents of road rage during the evening rush and Supergirl had shown up to each, calming them down and ending with the combatants shaking hands. It had taken the remainder of her waning emotional energy to deal with, and when she got home she was in her pyjamas and on the couch within seconds of breezing through the window. There was a knock at the door almost as soon as she’d picked up the remote control, however, and she looked through the door to find Alex there. She’d never been so conflicted in her life. She wanted what Alex had, namely potstickers and huge amounts of Chinese food, but she didn’t want to talk to Alex at all. She briefly contemplated pretending she wasn’t home, but Alex nixed that right away.

 

“I heard you come in, Kara. Open the door or I’ll break it down.”

 

“You know I leave a spare key in that key rock,” Kara grumbled, but she got up and opened the door anyway.

 

“I brought food,” Alex said, unnecessarily, before setting it out on the coffee table and getting plates from Kara’s cupboards the way she always did. Kara watched her in silence, arms wrapped across her abdomen. How was she supposed to deal with all of this?

 

“So. Everything but the potstickers is yours,” Alex said, and Kara pouted automatically. Potstickers were the best? Why would Alex even…?

 

“You get a potsticker for every truth you tell me,” Alex said, and her gaze was unrelenting. Kara sat down, looking away from Alex, and made a great show of switching on the television and finding the next episode of Homeland. She definitely did _not_ look at the potstickers and whimper.

 

“You can stay quiet if you want, but you don’t get any potstickers if you do that,” Alex said, and Kara couldn’t help but pout again. This wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t tell Alex anything.

 

“You can start by telling me why you were so upset the other day with the Hellgrammite,” Alex said, and Kara looked straight ahead at the television, although her self-control was crumbling. Alex must really want to know what was going on, to be so cruel. Potstickers were not something to be toyed with, and Alex knew that. Kara retaliated by setting her jaw and dramatically looking away every time Alex looked at her. After an hour, Alex sighed and handed her the potstickers.

 

“If I’d realised you felt that strongly about it, I would have respected your decision. Have at it, Supergirl,” she said, and Kara smiled for the first time that evening, heating the treats with her heat vision before demolishing them within seconds as Alex watched in disgusted fascination.

 

“Thanks, Alex,” she said, sighing with satisfaction, and Alex lifted up her arm so Kara could tuck herself into her sister’s side. Her sister. That was what she had to keep remembering.

 

“You know, you can tell me anything. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here to listen,” Alex said, kissing her on the top of her head before turning her attention back to the television screen. Kara took a silent deep breath.

 

After they’d tired of Homeland, Alex told her about her latest date with Maggie, and Kara made the appropriate noises and smiled just as brightly as usual. They went to bed, sharing Kara’s as usual, and Alex wrapped her arms around Kara’s abdomen and fell asleep within seconds. Kara didn’t sleep at all, responding to several sets of sirens during the night just to get some of her excess energy burned off. It was a shame Cat wasn’t here anymore. She’d always been around before when Kara needed someone to talk to, and Cat Grant barely ever slept.

 

Supergirl was the talk of the bullpen the following day, after her night-time appearances across the city.

 

“Like, does she ever sleep?”

 

“She talked three jumpers down from the National City bridge. In one night.”

 

“She stopped two robberies and caught a burglar who’s been breaking into, like, five houses a night down by the docks.”

 

Kara smiled. At least her sleepless night had some good results. It wasn’t her usual practise to get involved so much in minor emergencies – that was what the emergency services were for, and one of Cat’s earlier pieces of advice had been to let people do their jobs, and only step in when an emergency was beyond human capabilities. Kara stuck to that for the most part. But sometimes she needed an outlet, and other human contact besides Snapper Carr and DEO agents. James was still being weird because of their failed romance, and Winn was at the DEO, now. CatCo without Cat Grant wasn’t the same.

_A few months earlier_

Kara had broken things off with James with great reluctance. She had been into him. Very into him, actually. But not in the way he was with her. She cared about him a lot and she loved him as a friend. But she wasn’t in love with him. She was in love with Alex, and while she didn’t discount the possibility of being in love with more than one person at once, she just wasn’t feeling it with James. Their relationship had gone a little further than most people realised – they’d slept together and it had been great, actually. James was caring and she could talk to him openly, once she got past the embarrassment, about her issues with sex. Specifically, the fact that any of her muscles could snap any part of him like a twig if she wasn’t in control. Like, for example, during an orgasm. It turned out that James had already had some idea about it, given his friendship with Clark (which she was pretty sure had been a bit more than just friendship, at one point). So the sex was good, and they fit well together. Sometimes when they’d been together it had felt like flying, but then she’d always have to stop to avoid breaking him. Sometimes being super-powered sucked. But James was in love with her, and was falling deeper every day, and Kara just couldn’t see herself suddenly falling in love with him. So to stop herself from breaking his heart, she broke his heart.

 

“I’m so sorry, James,” she said, as he turned away from her and took a deep breath. “Can we please still be friends?”

 

He slumped visibly and then turned to face her, a smile on his face. A genuine, if a little sad, smile.

 

“I love you, Kara. We’ll always be friends, I promise. Just give me a little time to adjust, okay?” he said, before giving her a tight hug and leaving.

 

These days James was running around the city playing the hero as Guardian, and he’d saved Kara a few times when people had attacked her with Kryptonite. Even though Kal-El had taken the DEO’s supply away to the Fortress of Solitude, there still seemed to be an alarming number of criminals and metahumans – not to mention Cadmus – who kept finding that stupid green rock. She was glad James had found some way to channel his energy and hurt from their breakup, but she was worried for him every time he went out there. Armour or not, he was still breakable. Human.

 

“Danvers? Danvers!” She heard Snapper calling for her, and used a little superspeed to make it to his office without him noticing that she’d been upstairs in her own secret office the whole time.

 

“Ponytail, I want you to get me a quote from Lena Luthor about the President’s stance on her releasing the alien detection device,” he said, and Kara peered at him curiously.

 

“I’m sorry, sir, but what do you mean?” she said, and Snapper glared at her.

 

“Didn’t I teach you to read the papers ever single morning?” he snapped, and she flushed. She’d been trying so hard to stay away from her thoughts about Alex that morning that she’d forgotten. What was that? She was supposed to be developing into a brilliant journalist, not screwing things up because she’d fallen in love with her foster sister and had brought her back from the dead. She let her head drop in shame. She deserved to be yelled at for this. It was supposed to be the first thing she did every day. Instead she’d been basking in the glory of her Supergirl saves overnight.

 

Snapper was looking at her strangely. He didn’t say anything, and Kara tensed, waiting to be yelled at and called stupid names. He said nothing for a long moment, before pulling out a newspaper from the stack on the desk next to his and throwing it to her.

 

“President calls out LCorp for introducing new alien detection device,” was the headline, and it went on to say that Olivia had called the device “racial profiling by another name,” insisting that LCorp remove the device from general sale and sell it only to those who might have a legitimate use for it, such as law enforcement agencies and officials of sporting events where superpowers would be an unfair advantage.

 

“Wow, that’s pretty strong,” Kara said, blinking.

 

“I’ll say,” Snapper said, folding his arms. “I know the President is all for alien rights but this is taking it a little far. So I need you to go talk to your little friend Lena and get me some usable quotes. I want 500 words on her response on my desk before the end of the day. And if you do well, ponytail, I might assign you to a series on alien rights.”

 

She nodded sharply and eagerly but he had already turned away, eating what looked to be yesterday’s sandwich from Noonan’s. Kara suddenly realised she was hungry, and decided that she’d bring some food when she went to see Lena. The woman never ate.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winn is an awesome friend, Alex investigates what's wrong with Kara, and Kara has dinner with Lena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the awesome comments and the generally positive reaction to a newbie. You are a lovely bunch.

* * *

 

Alex was worried. Ever since Kara’s breakdown on the day the Hellgrammite had attacked Alex, Kara had been weird and distant and nothing like her usual sunny self. Alex knew Kara better than anyone, and she knew the depths of pain that her foster sister held in her heart. It as unimaginable to Alex, how it must have felt, to be sent away, to see your entire planet destroyed, and then to be lost for 24 years in some sort of weird stasis. Kara never wanted to talk about the Phantom Zone, and Alex honestly didn’t want to know. If Kara had been conscious in there, even a little, it would have been hell on earth. Well, not on earth, but hell nonetheless. Trapped in a pod with nothing but your own thoughts to distract you. Kara already knew English when she arrived, but her accent had been… odd. And she was incredibly formal. She didn’t fit in at school, she was always doing weird things and saying stuff that the other kids made fun of. Alex knew that the part that weighed on Kara the most was Clark - Kal-El. He’d arrived on earth 24 years before Kara, and had grown up to be Superman all by himself. Kara had been sent here to protect him and instead he’d pulled her from the pod she landed in, a fully-grown man and a superhero, before sending her off to live with complete strangers. Alex still hadn’t forgiven Clark for that. Yes, his father had just died and he was mourning, and he and Lois had just fallen in love, but there was no excuse for abandoning a terrified little girl. So Alex had taken his place, had protected Kara from everything and taught her everything she needed to know to pass for human. Every time he breezed into town and he and Kara did their ‘superhero team-ups’ Alex wanted to scream. The man was good. He was a paragon of goodness, really. He had literally died for the world, like some sort of Christ-figure, rising from the dead a year or two later, and even Kara was in awe of him. She shouldn’t be, in Alex’s opinion, because Kara was the real hero. She got up every morning with a smile on her face, carrying the weight of a whole planet – the billions of people, their languages, their cultures – all gone, and only remembered in Kara and the few pieces of information they had stored at the Fortress of Solitude.

 

“Winn,” Alex said, finally, as she reached the DEO’s new control room. “Do you have a few minutes?”

 

Winn was playing Doom on his tablet, away from the watchful eyes of Hank Henshaw, so he clearly had a few minutes. He reddened and jumped up, looking at her nervously. She probably should stop threatening him with bodily harm so often.

 

“Um, sure,” he said, looking up at her cautiously while palming the back of his neck. Yup. She needed to ease up on the threats.

 

She led him to her office and pointed at the visitor’s chair before offering him a coffee. He looked at her in confusion, but stammered his way through a request for cream and sugar, and she handed it to him with an eyeroll before making her own and sitting down.

 

“I was just wondering… Have you heard from Kara, at all? Or have you noticed her being a little strange? Stranger than usual, I mean,” she clarified, holding her hand up as he started to laugh.

 

“I guess? I haven’t heard from her since that thing with the Hellgrammite. I mean, what even happened, that day?” he asked, and Alex explained that nothing had actually happened, as such.

 

“Superman turned up and Kara dragged me behind one of the armoured cars and wouldn’t let me go, and then she cried for, like, two hours. I got her home and put her to bed and she hasn’t talked to me about it since.”

 

“Wait – why did Superman have to come? I mean, you killed that other Hellgrammite all by yourself, didn’t you? It wouldn’t have even taken Kara to deal with one of those guys. So why was Superman even there?” Winn asked, and Alex stopped, cocking her head as she thought.

 

“Hmm. I didn’t even think of that,” she said, and Winn pursed his lips. Alex held back a grin. She was beginning to really like Winn. Last year he’d been obsessed with Kara, and it was obvious that it made her foster sister really uncomfortable, but now that he’d accepted that Kara didn’t like him that way, and he’d taken a job at the DEO that really utilised his talents, he was a whole different guy.

 

“Is the Hellgrammite still here?” Winn asked, and Alex looked at him in wonder.

 

“He is. He’s supposed to be transferred to the new prison tomorrow, I think,” she said, and he smiled at her.

 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked, and she nodded, her lips curving up. It was time to question the Hellgrammite.

 

About thirty minutes later, Alex was standing in front of the alien’s cell. The dude was staring at her like she’d killed his mother or something.

 

“What were you doing, the other day?” she asked. The guy had practically been trying to get arrested. He’d taken two civilians hostage, but as soon as the DEO turned up he’d let them go. It didn’t make sense, now that Alex was thinking about it.

 

“I came to this planet to kill you, human,” he said, and she frowned at him.

 

“Why?” she asked, with a confused look.

 

“You killed my mate,” he said, and she almost gasped.

 

“He was your mate?” she asked, and he nodded, hissing at her.

 

“He was trying to kill me,” Alex said, and she shrugged. “It was me or him. I chose me. I’m sorry you lost him, but he didn’t have to kill me. It was his choice to follow General Astra, not mine.”

 

“You will not be so lucky next time, Agent. Your pet Kryptonians won’t always be around to save you,” he said, and she sighed.

 

“Good luck in your new home,” she said, and left him to his thoughts. She returned to her office, finding Winn still lingering there, probably hiding from Hank.

 

“So, the Hellgrammite was here specifically to kill me,” she said, and Winn’s eyes widened.

 

“Wow. What did you do to that guy?” he asked, and she shrugged.

 

“The Hellgrammite who attacked me before – the one I killed – was his mate. So he came to avenge his death. I feel kind of sorry for him, really. But I didn’t want to kill the other one either. He gave me no choice,” Alex said, and she sat in her chair, slumping.

 

“So we’re back to square one. Only we know that the Hellgrammite was trying to kill you. And Superman was there, for no good reason, apparently,” Winn said.

 

“Oh, and he came by the other day to stay with Kara. To talk super business, he said,” Alex said, slightly bitterly.

 

“You don’t actually like him much, do you?” Winn observed, and Alex shifted uncomfortably.

 

“It’s hard to dislike him,” she said, thoughtfully. “I mean, he’s like, the poster boy for all that’s good and right. But he left Kara, a terrified little girl, with complete strangers. I mean, who does that? She was so scared, and I was such a bitch to her at first, Winn. She was this amazing kid who could fly and she was so sweet and my parents loved her. I was jealous, you know?”

 

He nodded sympathetically, taking a gulp of coffee that he’d apparently helped himself to while she’d been gone.

 

“I just think – he was her only living relative. Or at least the only one she knew about, and there he was dumping her off on his friends because she didn’t fit in with his life or whatever. I just… whatever he might do now, any good he’s done – that will always be what I remember. Kara crying herself to sleep every single night because she was so alone.”

 

“I understand,” Winn said, and she could see that he did. “When my dad did… what he did, I was put in foster care. I know it’s nowhere near the same – I mean, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be in Kara’s position – but I was abandoned, too. I just wish I had someone like you in my corner back then,” he said, with a smile. “Kara’s lucky to have someone who cares so much about her.”

 

“You’re okay, Winn Schott,” Alex said, impulsively, and then reddened. He grinned and she could see him physically restraining himself from leaping up and hugging her. She turned away with an eyeroll and thought about what to do next. There was something wrong with Kara, and it was Alex’s job to make sure she was okay. If there was one thing Alex could do, and do well, it was taking care of Kara.

 

***

 

Kara called ahead to make an appointment with Lena, this time, to avoid annoying her assistant Jess, primarily, but also to give Lena the opportunity to say no. Things had been strange between them since Lillian Luthor’s arrest. Kara knew that it was because she’d doubted Lena as Supergirl, and because she’d gone to see Lena as Kara earlier that day asking veiled questions about Lillian instead of just being honest. Both incidents had damaged their relationship, and Kara knew she had to make amends.

 

Lena didn’t turn her down, however. In fact she’d asked if Kara would like to have dinner with her rather than just an interview, so Kara had said yes. It was the least she could do, in the circumstances. She changed her clothes approximately ten times before leaving, glad that Alex wasn’t there to question why she was so nervous about seeing Lena Luthor. She was also glad that Alex wasn’t here because it was becoming increasingly difficult to be around her foster sister. Any time they were together, Alex was watching her with this considering look, like she was going to find out what was wrong so she could fix it. That was what Alex always did; looked after Kara and took care of whatever was wrong, whether it be bullies at high school or boy trouble. Kara laughed out loud at that thought, because her problem right now – okay, her problem since she realised that Alex wasn’t actually her betrothed as she’d thought – was so far from boy trouble it was laughable.

 

“Kara!” Lena said, jumping up from her place on the immaculate sofa in her office with a smile. She was dazzlingly beautiful, as always. Something about her made Kara even clumsier than usual.

 

“Hi, Lena,” she said, while half-tripping over her own bag as she tried to retrieve her notebook. She blushed fiercely as Lena smiled even more widely and then came closer and hugged her. She smelled like expensive perfume and skin products that probably cost more than Kara’s rent, and it was a little intoxicating. Kara let herself breathe it in and closed her eyes, hugging Lena tightly for a moment.

 

“I haven’t seen you for a while,” Lena remarked as they sat down and Kara finally located her notebook without damaging anything.

 

“I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy with everything, you know, helping friends and work, obviously. And my sister needed me,” Kara said, and Lena smiled understandingly. “I… I feel like I owe you an apology, actually, Lena.”

 

“Why?” Lena asked, her brow quirked slightly.

 

“I… the last time I came here, I had been given some information. About your mother.”

 

Lena’s face darkened before turning entirely impassive. It was astonishing to watch, and a little scary, to see her transform so fully in a matter of seconds.

 

“I won’t insult your intelligence – I know that you were aware that I was asking because of what you found out later. About Cadmus, about all of it. I am really new to this job, Lena, and I am really struggling with how I do things, how to balance the need of the public to know the truth with personal relationships and my own integrity. And… I messed up. I should have just told you what I had heard and asked for your thoughts. I messed it up, and I’m really sorry.”

 

Kara was looking at her notebook, unable to meet Lena’s eyes, but Lena touched her chin and tilted it up gently. She smiled, meeting Kara’s eyes without flinching.

 

“I understand, Kara. I… honestly, I think if you’d come to me and told me what you knew, I probably wouldn’t have reacted any better. In fact, someone did speak to me about it, later that same day, and I didn’t react well. So maybe it’s just as well, for our friendship, that you didn’t. In any case, I know you didn’t mean any harm, and I forgive you. Let’s just leave it in the past, okay?”

 

Kara smiled uncertainly and Lena smoothed Kara’s collar under her favourite pink sweater, seemingly unconscious of her movements, touching her the way Cat used to when she was trying to reassure Kara.

 

“I don’t really feel like I deserve your forgiveness, Lena, but thank you. I swear I’ll be direct in future. And I also just wanted to say… I’m so proud of you. For what you did. You saved all of the aliens in National City.”

 

“How do you know about that?” Lena asked, and Kara shrugged.

 

“Supergirl. She’s a friend.”

 

Lena’s face darkened a little.

 

“Is she.”

 

“Um… yes?” Kara answered nervously. “I… she speaks really highly of you.

 

“You could have fooled me,” Lena muttered, her eyes narrow. “The last time I saw her she believed I was on my mother’s side.”

 

“But… weren’t you trying to convince her of that?” Kara asked, rather reasonably, she thought.

 

“I was, but I hoped… she told me she believed in me, Kara, that I could be a hero. But when I turned that key she believed I was killing every alien in National City. And I guess I can’t really forget that.”

 

“Why didn’t you just tell her what you were doing, then?” Kara asked. “Surely she would have helped?”

 

“She could have, but she came in here talking about my mother and how she was the head of Cadmus and I just… I knew she wouldn’t believe me, no matter what.”

 

“If she didn’t believe you, Lena, she would have stopped you from turning the key and setting off the explosion. She has super-speed, right? She could have done it before you blinked. She obviously trusted you. Maybe she was just afraid. Trusting you was a real risk. That virus would have killed friends of hers, Lena. I know she trusted you – trusts you, because she told me.”

 

Lena looked thoughtful.

 

“What did you mean, it would have killed her friends? Wouldn’t it have killed her, too?”

 

Kara cursed herself.

 

“I… um, think you should maybe ask her, about all that?” Kara said, tentatively, fiddling with her glasses and biting on her bottom lip. Alex was right; it was a miracle that everyone in the city didn’t know her identity.

 

“Well, never mind Supergirl, for now. Let’s have some dinner and catch up, and then we can do this interview.”

 

Lena stood up with a smile and Kara followed her to a private dining room nearby, where an annoyed-looking Jess was dealing with a waiter. Kara’s attention was immediately captured by the food, and she spent the next forty minutes or so eating one of the best meals she’d had in a long time. She made a mental note to get the name of Lena’s caterers. She’d have to eat again, later, but even so she was impressed at the quantity and quality of the food Lena provided.  She zoned out a little, listening and smiling as Lena talked, while wondering why Lena Luthor was so interested in spending time with a rookie reporter she’d just met when she could be schmoozing with National City’s elite.

 

***

 

It was a few days later, and Alex had just had a really amazing date with Maggie that had ended with them making out on Alex’s couch for over an hour, together with a little over-the-bra action that had left Alex flustered and red-faced. She couldn’t sleep, so she headed in to the DEO to check how things were going. Nothing too exciting had been going on, but there were some anomalous readings that dated from her near-miss with the Hellgrammite – temporal readings. She wondered if maybe Barry Allen had popped into their universe again, and she was idly planning whether a scan for tachyons might give her some answers as to the origin of the temporal disturbance. She walked into someone as she was thinking about time travel and the bisexual white canary who Kara had told her about, the one who’d hit on her. The idea of another woman hitting on Kara made Alex feel… squirmy, somehow, and uncomfortable. Why, she wasn’t sure. Not exactly, anyway.

 

She almost walked into Winn, who was frowning at a tablet and not looking where he was going. She grasped him gently by the shoulders and he shot her a look of fear.

 

“Alex… I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going, I…”

 

“Shut up, Winn. What’s got you so worried?” she asked, indicating the tablet with a thumb.

 

“I… uh…” he looked around a little nervously and Alex narrowed her eyes. “Could we maybe talk somewhere more… not here?” he asked, and she nodded.

 

“My office?”

 

He nodded, and she led the way to her office as he continued to look around him nervously.

 

“Is there someone you’re avoiding?” she asked, as he turned on some music using the Bluetooth speaker on Alex’s desk. It was some rock band, playing a little louder than Alex would have preferred. Winn ducked down behind the speaker dramatically. Alex stared at him in confusion.

 

“Uh - I’m trying to make sure that Supergirl can’t hear us?” he hissed, and Alex sighed, pressing a button under her desk that turned the windows opaque while also sending out some strong white noise signals that Kara’s super-hearing couldn’t penetrate. She raised an eyebrow at Winn and he straightened up in his chair, smiling ruefully before turning off the music.

 

“So?” she prompted, and he flushed.

 

“You asked if Kara had been acting strange. I’ve been pulling together reports from a news aggregator and it looks like Supergirl has been around pretty much 24/7, other than the time Kara spends at CatCo. Have you noticed anything?” he asked, and Alex frowned.

 

“I stayed with her the other night – we watched some Netflix and then I stayed over. I didn’t notice her leaving.”

 

“What night was that?” Winn asked, and Alex told him. He looked at her after a moment.

 

“According to this, she saved a few people from suicide, a couple of robberies and I think maybe some home invasions? So, that was all while you were staying over?” he asked, and he looked worried. Alex was, too.

 

“I can’t believe I didn’t feel her leaving. She was sleeping next to me when I woke up,” Alex said thoughtfully, chewing on her thumbnail. Winn’s eyebrow raised a little but he said nothing.

 

“Does she do this a lot?” he asked, with a tiny frown. She shrugged.

 

“Honestly, I don’t know. Since she came out as Supergirl it’s been really hard to know where she is. It’s a little frustrating, actually. I’m supposed to look after her and I can’t do that if I don’t even know where she is,” Alex grumbled.

 

“She’s a grown woman, Alex,” Winn said softly. “She’s a superhero. She can look after herself.”

 

“Yeah? Tell that to my mom,” Alex said, frowning.

 

“Maybe we should talk to Superman,” Winn suggested, suddenly.

 

“What?”

 

“Well, he’s the missing piece of the puzzle, right? He fought the Hellgrammite, and he came by the other night to talk about super stuff. Obviously there’s something going on and he knows something about it,” Winn pointed out, reasonably, as he twirled around in his chair. Alex nodded.

 

“You might have a point,” she conceded, and Winn smiled. He really was growing on her. Like a fungus, she thought. The thought made her smile and when he smiled back even more widely, she feared that they were having a moment, so she told him tersely to go back to work. She sent a text message to Clark asking him to come and see her and then she began researching the unusual temporal readings she’d picked up.

 

***

 

“So, Kara, I suppose we’d better get on with the interview?” Lena asked, somewhat reluctantly, as she blotted her lips gently with her napkin. She’d eaten a tenth of what Kara had, at best, and had been dainty and delicate as she ate and drank. Kara feared she hadn’t been half as delicate. Or, you know, at all.

 

“If you’re ready,” Kara agreed, with a small smile, and Lena’s eyes brightened. She was staring, and it wasn’t the first time she’d stared at Kara that night. Or in general. She never seemed to stare at anyone else, just Kara. What was it that Lena Luthor was so interested in, Kara wondered, when it came to her? She knew she dressed like she belonged in a secretarial pool in the 1960s, and that there were only a select few people who appreciated her particular style. Ms Grant certainly hadn’t, and had taken great pleasure in tearing into Kara’s fashion sense.

 

(“I’m just saving you from this polyester mess, Kiera,” she would say, gesticulating in Kara’s general direction. “Polyester is the cloth of the devil, Kiera. You’re making me sweat just looking at you.”)

 

“Kara?”

 

Lena’s voice cut into her thoughts and she looked up, finding Lena looking at her in concern.

 

“I’m so sorry, Lena,” she said, blushing. “I just… zoned out there, a little,” she confessed, and Lena giggled.

 

“You really are something else, Kara Danvers,” she said, fondly, before standing and holding out a hand to Kara. She took it, bemused, and Lena drew Kara along in her wake, back to her office, holding her hand the whole way.

 

“So, let’s talk about the President and her statement,” she said, with a resigned sigh. Kara tilted her head.

 

“How mad are you about it?” she asked, first, with her notebook on the table and her recorder firmly switched off to show that she was asking as a friend, first.

 

“Honestly, Kara? I don’t know,” Lena said, with a weary sigh. “She’s made me doubt myself, I confess. You will remember that I was fairly determined when we met, so far as the detection device was concerned, at least. That people have the right to know who their friends and neighbours are. But now I’m wavering. I have a lot of respect for the President, and she spoke to me about this a week or so ago, before she made her statement. I’m starting to think she might be right. What do you think, Kara?” she asked, her green eyes sharp. She leaned forward and touched Kara’s hand, and it made Kara’s skin heat, for some reason.

 

“Well, you know that we don’t really agree on this stuff,” Kara began, pushing her glasses up and staring at her knees fixedly. Lena’s hand was still on hers, and it was making her feel more nervous than she was already.

 

“I know, Kara. But I value your opinion,” Lena said, and she certainly looked sincere. So Kara was honest.

 

“Okay, if you’re sure?” Kara said, and Lena smiled, nodding.

 

“I know that there are a lot of aliens who have caused a lot of problems for National City and Metropolis. But there are others, like Superman, who have tried to do good. And I know how you feel about him, Lena, believe me,” Kara said, as Lena’s expression darkened. “But he does try to do good, no matter what you might think of him because of Lex. He literally died to save lives when Lex created that monster thing.”

                                                                               

Lena flinched a little. What Lex had done – it had killed a lot of people, and the monster he’d created would have killed many more if Superman hadn’t sacrificed his life to kill it. She nodded, reluctantly, and Kara squeezed her hand in sympathy.

 

“I just think – I’ve met a lot of aliens, since I started working as a reporter, and it seems to me that they are just as different from one another as humans are. Yes, some are destructive, but some just want to live their lives in peace, and others, like Superman,” she said, before Lena interrupted.

 

“And Supergirl?” she asked, with one eyebrow up, and Kara nodded, a little too fast.

 

“And Supergirl, of course,” Kara said, and continued. “Others, they give up their lives to defend their adopted planet, and it seems to me that humans are just the same. Some are destructive, some just want to be left alone, and then there are others who put themselves out there, fighting for others. I just think that if you changed the word ‘alien’ for something else; say, Muslim, or gay… You wouldn’t feel like selling a gay detection device was an okay thing to do, would you?” she asked, and Lena’s eyebrows ascended. She was chewing on her lip.

 

“Okay. I see your point, I suppose. Aliens are here on our planet for as many reasons as refugees coming to America or Europe or whatever. Only a small proportion of them wish us harm. Is that what you’re saying?”

 

Kara nodded, enthusiastically.

 

“If you want to look at it from a personal point of view – you want to be seen as your own woman, different from your family. Different from Lex, and your mother,” Kara said, mentioning Lillian Luthor hesitantly. She knew that Lena’s relationship with her mother had been fraught even before her arrest. Lena’s jaw tightened, but she attempted an encouraging smile.

 

“If I said to you that I wanted to create a device that would warn people when the person they were talking to was a Luthor, would you think that was a fair and decent thing to do?” Kara asked, and Lena’s eyes widened.

 

“You… you’ve given me a lot to think about, Kara,” she said, finally. Kara took a deep breath. She’d been holding it, waiting for Lena’s response.

 

“Do you still want to do the interview?” Kara asked. Lena looked lost in thought, and Kara didn’t feel like now was the time to be asking a lot of intrusive questions.

 

“I think… I would prefer to leave the interview for this evening, if that’s okay, Kara?” Lena asked, and Kara nodded.

 

“Of course. Whatever you need.”

 

“I have some thinking to do,” Lena said, with a soft smile to show that she wasn’t upset with what Kara had said.

 

“Sure,” Kara said, with an echoing smile. Lena was a special person, thoughtful and smart and while she was obviously volatile at times – the way she’d responded to Supergirl telling her about Lillian’s role in Cadmus proved that – she was also willing to think about things, willing to acknowledge that she was wrong.

 

“You know, if it helps, I know that the people that Supergirl works with would welcome those devices, and they’d be used for good. To keep the people of earth safe from the aliens who want to hurt them,” Kara said, and Lena nodded.

 

“I might contact you about that, at a later date, and ask you to contact Supergirl for me, if that’s okay?” Lena asked, and Kara nodded.

 

“Of course,” Kara said, nodding, and she smiled slightly. If she’d achieved nothing else recently, she might very well have changed Lena Luthor’s mind on her alien detection device, and as Kara Danvers, not Supergirl. She felt a strange sort of pride unfurling in her chest, filling her with warmth.

 

“You know, you’re pretty amazing, Kara Danvers,” Lena said, and Kara looked up at her incredulously.

 

“No, I’m not. I’m nothing special, Lena,” she scoffed, and Lena shook her head.

 

“Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not true,” she said, and Kara blushed, her head down.

 

“You really are very sweet, Kara Danvers,” Lena breathed, and Kara looked up to find Lena watching her with a strange expression on her face. It looked almost… tender.

 

“Thank you,” Kara said, and she felt like her blush could rival Rao himself.

 

After a short silence, Kara smiled at Lena.

 

“Do you like Harry Potter?” she asked, and Lena looked at her curiously.

 

“I… I’ve read them, if that’s what you’re asking?” she said, looking puzzled. Kara smiled a little wider.

 

“Do you remember, at the end of the first book, when Dumbledore is giving out points to Harry and Hermione and Ron, and then he gives points to Neville? Do you remember what he said?” Kara asked, and Lena looked at her in puzzlement. Kara continued, with a soft smile.

 

“He said that it took courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more courage to stand up to your friends. And I think that goes for family, too. More, even,” Kara said, and Lena began to blush, starting at her chest and moving upwards.

 

“I… thank you, Kara,” she said, and Kara couldn’t help but grin at her.

 

“I knew you were a Potter nerd. No-one else would have really understood that reference,” she teased, and Lena shot her a mock-glare.

 

“Tell anyone and I’ll have you hunted down and imprisoned for life,” she said, with an evil grin. “I am a Luthor, after all.”

 

Kara reached out and squeezed Lena’s hand again, smiling.

 

“One day, that name is going to stand for completely different things than it does right now, and it’ll be because of you, Lena Luthor,” she said, and Lena’s blush intensified. She bit her bottom lip, and Kara gulped as she heard Lena’s heartbeat accelerate. At that moment, she felt her phone vibrate, and with an apologetic smile, she checked her phone. It was a text from Alex.

 

_Sorry, but I can’t make sister night. Maggie came over unexpectedly. Raincheck?_

Kara’s heart sank, suddenly, and she closed her eyes. She was finding it hard to spend time with Alex, since the Hellgrammite, but she also wanted to spend all of her time with Alex, be immersed in her. And Alex wanted to spend her time with Maggie, instead. Why wouldn’t she? Because Maggie was her girlfriend, and Kara was just the younger sister who had taken everything away from her, including her father. Kara sighed, and when she looked up Lena was much closer, looking at her in concern.

 

“Kara, are you okay?” she asked, and Kara smiled weakly, holding back the tears with difficulty.

 

“Yeah, of course. Just… a little disappointed,” she admitted, and Lena ran her thumbs over Kara’s knuckles gently.

 

“What happened?” she asked softly, and Kara shook her head.

 

“It’s nothing. I… I’d rather not talk about it. Is that okay?”

 

Lena nodded, and licked her lips.

 

“We don’t have to talk at all,” she said, and looked up at Kara coyly, through her dark eyelashes. Kara’s breath caught. _Oh._ So this was what all the looks were about.

 

“We don’t have to talk about anything at all,” Lena breathed, her body leaning towards Kara’s, her body language clear. Her breath was tickling Kara’s ear. “This doesn’t have to be anything. Just two friends helping each other out. With disappointment, or whatever.”

 

Kara turned her head, and Lena was right there, her lips not even an inch away, and Kara looked at her crystal clear green eyes and then down at her painted mouth, and Lena bit her lip again. Kara’s hands moved of their own volition, into Lena’s hair, tilting her head back a little, exposing the incredibly white skin of her neck, and Lena looked at Kara with a hint of a smirk.

 

“Well? What are you waiting for?” she asked, and Kara made a noise that could have been a growl before moving forward at almost super-speed to kiss Lena hard. She held back, as always, because she had to, keeping her strength under control so she didn’t hurt Lena. But the way Lena was making small noises in her throat as Kara bit her under her jaw, she didn’t think Lena would mind if she hurt her a little, in the right way.

 

They fucked right there, on Lena’s pristine couch – or rather, Kara fucked Lena, for obvious reasons. The woman was exquisite, all whites and pinks and hair like midnight, and she was so sensitive. Kara made marks all over that white body, laughing as Lena tried to do the same to her. She made Lena keep her heels on, and when they dug into her back she relished the feeling – not pain, because she was impervious to that, but something different, something to make her stop feeling so much. She concentrated on that feeling, burying her face between Lena Luthor’s thighs, and later when Lena did the same for her, she forgot about Alex entirely for a little while. Not for long, but it was enough. She didn’t have to check to know that there were tears falling from her eyes as Lena nuzzled into her neck before falling asleep wrapped in Kara’s arms. It wasn’t everything, but it could be enough. Right? She tried to convince herself, falling asleep dreaming of hazel eyes, not green.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex does some more investigating and has a heart to heart with Kara, and Kara and Lena's relationship progresses

* * *

 

Clark was arriving shortly at the DEO, much happier to visit nowadays since they no longer had stockpiles of Kryptonite.  Alex had been loath to cancel sister night with Kara; she was still hoping that she’d be able to convince Kara to tell her what was wrong so that she could help. But Clark could only come by tonight, so she cancelled and worried when she saw that Kara had read her message but hadn’t replied. Before she could call her sister and talk to her about it, however, Clark had arrived, and Winn was having a serious nerd meltdown, once again, at Superman’s presence.

 

“Hey, I… uh, it’s really good to see you again, Superman,” Winn said, running one hand through his hair nervously before offering it to Clark, who shook it good-naturedly.

 

“Hi, Winn. It’s nice to see you too. You’re working at the DEO now full time, I hear?” Clark said, and Winn reddened so violently that Alex almost went to catch him because he looked like he might faint and/or die on the spot.

 

“Um… yeah, full-time now, Superman, who knows my name and things about me,” Winn said, and Alex rolled her eyes. The dude was just… wow. Gay crush much?

 

“So, Superman, can we…?” Alex indicated the general direction of her office and Clark smiled that huge, shit-eating grin he did when he’d just kicked the crap out of a monster or saved a bus full of kids or whatever. It made Alex’s teeth itch. If she’d ever thought she could make a dent, she was pretty sure she would have punched him right in that grin at some point. She gritted her teeth, hearing them squeak against each other painfully, before leading the way to her office. She took the extra precaution of turning on the privacy windows and sound settings, just in case Kara did decide to come by the DEO tonight.

 

“So, what can I do for you, Alex?” Clark asked, smoothing his cape under him as he sat carefully. She offered him a cup of coffee, which he took eagerly, and she made her own before sitting down.

 

“Something’s wrong with Kara,” she said, without preamble, and he sighed.

 

“I thought this might come up. Listen, Alex…” he began, and she held up a hand to stop him.

 

“I know the next words out of your mouth are probably going to be about how you can’t betray her confidence and that she trusts you and all that stuff, and normally that would be fine, Clark. But here’s the thing. She will barely talk to me. She cried in my arms for hours after we captured that Hellgrammite, and since then she’ll barely look at me. She… she’s so unhappy, Clark, and I have to do something. I can’t watch her suffer and do nothing. Can you?” she asked, and he sighed again.

 

“I can tell you something. Do you know – did Kara ever tell you what happened when Lex Luthor set off those nuclear devices and caused the earthquake in California?” he asked, and Alex shook her head, puzzled.

 

“Lois was doing an interview with a Native American man who owned part of the land in that area. He’d just sold the land to an anonymous buyer, and it didn’t add up that someone would buy all this useless desert land. So she did the interview, dropped the guy off, and she was driving back when the earthquake hit. She… the road she was travelling on split right down the centre, and her car… it was buried. She was buried. She died that day.”

 

Alex stared. Clark was talking about his wife, a woman that was very much alive, so far as Alex Danvers was aware. Not only that, but she’d never seen Clark Kent in this state, his hands shaking, his face pale.

 

“She died. And I… well. We hadn’t known each other that long, but I guess I knew she was the one, and she was gone. My father, Jor-El, had given me a lot of information about my Kryptonian heritage and the powers I would develop. One of them was a power he told me I could never use.”

 

Clark’s voice was trembling, and Alex sensed that this was perhaps not the time to fangirl over unknown Kryptonian powers. She reached forward and took his hand, squeezing it hard, knowing he would need the pressure to really feel the touch. He looked up at her, an attempt at a smile on his face, which fell away after a second.

 

“She was dead, and I guess I went a little crazy. I did what my father had expressly forbidden me to do, and I interfered with the course of human history in a way that wasn’t allowed. I turned back time. Only about an hour or so, I think, but it was enough to allow me to deal with more of the damage from the earthquake, and to save Lois.”

 

Alex’s mouth was hanging open. For possibly the first time in her life – or maybe second, because she’d been struck dumb when she realised Kara actually could fly – she was speechless.

 

“Kara found out about it. She’s spent some time in the fortress and Kelex told her what happened. I guess that’s what was in her mind on the day the Hellgrammite attacked you.”

 

“But it didn’t attack me,” Alex said, puzzled. “Kara pulled me away, and you…” She paused, suddenly, as the pieces started to slot together. “Are you telling me that the Hellgrammite _killed_ me?”

 

Clark looked up at her, his face stricken.

 

“Kara was already in the upper atmosphere when I found her. She told me that I could let her save you, or I could send her into Rao’s light myself, because she couldn’t go on without you. She told me that you were the only reason she still lived, after I abandoned her.”

 

Clark’s head dropped into his hands, and Alex, stunned, was actually sorry for him. Maybe he wasn’t as oblivious as she’d thought. But this was… this was unbelievable. Kara had turned back time to save her life. She’d messed with the space-time continuum to save Alex.

 

“Why would she do that, Clark?” she asked, weakly. “She knows that I would have given my life for hers any day. She knew that’s what I would want. Why would she do this?” she asked, and she knew she sounded weak and sad and childish. He took her hand in hers, this time, looking at her with those big blue eyes that usually made her want to hit something.

 

“I can’t tell you her reasons, Alex. That’s her business. But that’s why she’s been strange, or part of the reason, at least. And Hank tells me you’ve been looking into some anomalous temporal readings – obviously you know why, now. I don’t know how it works, when the timeline is changed that way, but so far as I’m aware there are no far-reaching consequences to it. It doesn’t excuse what I did, or what Kara did. Our decisions were both selfish. But she meant it, Alex. She would have fought me to the death to save you, if I hadn’t stood down. She loves you more than she loves anyone else on this planet, I know that. If you want to know any more, you will need to speak to her. But don’t be too harsh with her, Alex. She didn’t make this decision lightly.”

 

Alex nodded, her mind whirling. She was… how could Kara… Alex had died. She’d died, and Kara had brought her back to life. Literally. There was no other way to look at it. How could she deal with that? How did you even begin to process something like that?

 

“Thank you, Clark. I appreciate you talking to me. I know it couldn’t have been easy,” she said, and he nodded, his body relaxing. “I need to find Kara. Are you okay to show yourself out?” she asked, and he nodded.

 

“If not, I’m sure I can find someone to direct me,” he said, and they grinned at each other, thinking of Winn and how over-eager he was when it came to Superman. The hug they shared then was probably the most sincere Alex had ever had with Clark since Kara’s arrival. She understood a little more about him now and while she would never forgive him for his abandonment of his cousin, she knew now that he carried the weight of it. That helped, for some reason. She grinned at him again and then left, making her way straight to Kara’s apartment. It was time they had a talk.

 

***

 

_“I won't fail Kal-El or you.”_

 

_Kara whimpered, her heart thudding, as her pod took off, taking her away from Alura and Zor-El and everyone and everything she’d ever known. She knew what was coming, that the explosion was going to hit her pod and send her to the Phantom Zone, and in that way that it always is in dreams, she knew she couldn’t avoid it. She couldn’t bear to re-live it, and she began to sob, her heart breaking once again for her loss._

“Kara? Kara! Wake up. It’s just a dream. You’re safe. You’re safe,” a soft voice said, and there were hands touching her face, gently soothing her skin. _Alex,_ she thought, but then the voice spoke again and she remembered where she was. She opened her eyes to find Lena Luthor looking at her, eyes filled with concern.

 

“Kara. You were crying in your sleep,” she said, wiping away Kara’s tears with her thumb. Kara couldn’t speak, so she just turned into Lena’s arms and let herself be held. It was ten minutes or so later when Lena spoke again.

 

“When Lex was learning about Superman, at the beginning, he found a lot of artefacts from around the world of Kryptonian origin, including one that taught him Kryptonese. Some sort of AI, I suppose. But he taught me some words,” Lena said, and her voice was expressionless. Kara opened her eyes. _Shit._

 

“I spoke, when I was dreaming?” she asked, and Lena nodded. Kara sat up.

 

“I’m sorry, Lena. You… I know how you feel, about aliens. About me. I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean for this to happen. I should go,” she said, gathering her clothes quickly, until she felt Lena’s hand on her arm.

 

“Kara. I already knew,” Lena said, and Kara turned to her.

 

“How?” she asked, thinking that Alex was going to kill her for this.

 

“You were with Clark Kent when we first met. I know who he is, and I saw you with him before meeting you as Supergirl, where you were, yet again, with Clark Kent. And you told me you flew to my office on a bus,” she said, deadpan, and to Kara’s astonishment, she began to laugh. Kara found herself joining in, mostly through bemusement.

 

“So you knew, before we…” Kara said, gesturing between them, and Lena nodded.

 

“You wanted me, even though you knew I was her?” she asked, and Lena nodded again. “Oh,” Kara said, weakly. She hadn’t expected that. Nor did she expect Lena to practically throw her down on the bed, biting her so hard on the neck that Kara actually felt something resembling discomfort.

 

It was an hour or so later when she flew in through the open window of her apartment, her clothes back on after another round with Lena. She needed a shower and some sleep before she had to deal with Snapper Carr again.

 

“Kara?”

 

She froze as she realised that Alex was on her couch, in the dark. She felt like she’d been caught sneaking in after curfew.

 

“Alex? What are you doing here?” she asked, blinking as Alex switched on the lamp next to the couch, sitting up. She looked beautiful, her hair tousled and her face marked from the couch cushion she’d been lying on.

 

“We need to talk,” Alex said, and Kara winced. That was Alex’s ‘serious’ tone, meaning that Kara was in trouble.

 

“Can I at least shower first?” she asked, and Alex looked at her suspiciously.

 

“Why? Where have you been, Kara?” she asked, moving closer, and Kara took a step back, retreating from Alex’s suspicion. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good. Alex took a breath and then tilted her head in disbelief.

 

“Kara – you smell like… like _sex!_ Who… were you with James?” she asked, before adding, “I thought that was over?”

 

Kara shook her head, looking down. This could not be happening.

 

“No. We broke up. I told you; it just wasn’t right,” Kara said, stumbling over the words, and Alex stepped closer, confused.

 

“If it wasn’t James, then who… Who are you sleeping with, Kara? Is this why you’ve been hiding from me? What’s going on?”

 

Kara moved away, her face going impassive.

 

“It’s… it’s private, Alex. I don’t want to talk about it. I need to take a shower. If you want, we can talk after that,” she said, and Alex nodded, her jaw tight.

 

“Fine. I’ll be here when you’re ready,” she said, crossing her arms and moving back to the couch. Kara sighed. What the hell did it matter to Alex, anyway? She had been with Maggie and she blew off their night together. So where did she get off judging Kara’s choices? Kara set her jaw and went to take a shower.

 

Alex was biting her lip when Kara came back in, and it made her think about Lena biting her bottom lip, and her mind went to a few places that were probably not suitable for thinking around her foster sister.

 

“So?” Kara asked, a little more pugnaciously than she probably should have, given that she was deeply, madly in love with the woman on her couch. She sat down, hugging her knees to her chest, and waited for Alex to speak.

 

“I spoke to Clark. He told me what happened with the Hellgrammite. He told me that you turned back time to save my life,” Alex said, simply, and Kara’s world began to crumble around her. She began to feel like the room was spinning and she started to lose control of her senses, starting to see through the walls and hear everything that was happening within the nearest thirty miles or so. She felt Alex’s body wrap around her, and she began to breathe in time with Alex’s breaths. It took a while for her to calm down, and once she did, she was wrapped up in Alex’s arms, the place she wanted to be most in the world. And least, in other aspects.

 

“I love you, Kara. I’ve got you. Whatever it is, we can deal with it together. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

 

Alex was wiping away her tears as Kara cried, sobbing as she re-lived that day when Alex was limp and cold, her body crushed and stabbed by an alien after revenge. It took a while longer, but she calmed down and Alex stroked her hair gently until her tears dried up.

 

“Why did you do this, Kara? We both know that you don’t need me. You’re a grown woman. You’re a superhero, for Christ’s sake,” Alex said, and Kara shivered at the feeling of Alex’s breath in her ear.

 

“You don’t understand, Alex,” Kara said, and she sat up, moving away from Alex’s body reluctantly. “And I do need you. I need you so much. I told Clark not to tell you.”

 

“Why?” Alex asked, softly, taking Kara’s hand gently.

 

“I do need you. The thought of being without you – I just couldn’t face it,” Kara said, and Alex frowned in confusion.

 

“Kara, Clark said you told him you’d fight to the death, that he’d have to send you into Rao’s light himself if he didn’t stand down. I mean, what was that? You threatened him, so that you could do this thing, that you knew you shouldn’t? And all to bring me back? It’s my job, Kara, and I knew the risks then, just like I know them now. It doesn’t make any sense.”

 

“Alex, not very long ago you took an ancient Kryptonian spaceship and flew it into space to save my life. How can you tell me that you don’t understand? You literally risked your life to save me then and another hundred times that I can think of offhand. Why is this a surprise to you? That I can’t do this without the one person who’s always been there for me? That I can’t live without you?” Kara asked, and she was crying again, her cheeks hot as she tried to keep the words back that she really wanted to say. Alex gathered her into her arms again, and Kara cried against her knit sweater, the scent and feel of Alex surrounding her and calming her. If only Kal-El had said things a different way, all those years ago when she’d landed on earth, she might never have had to feel like this. Like her heart was being ripped from her body every time she saw Alex with someone else.

 

“I’m here, Kara. I’ll always be here.”

 

“But you weren’t, Alex. You died,” Kara choked out, and Alex squeezed her tighter.

 

“I did. And you brought me back. So I guess we’ll just have to deal with it,” Alex said, sighing quietly, and Kara settled more closely against her. Alex ran her fingers through Kara’s hair. “I love you, Kara.”

 

It was a little while later when they went to bed, Alex climbing in wordlessly beside Kara after changing into a spare set of PJs. When she put her arm around Kara’s waist and her face in the back of Kara’s neck the way she always did, Kara tried not to flinch. How could she want something so much and not want it at all at the same time? Alex didn’t love her that way, and she had Maggie, besides. Kara cried herself to sleep silently in the arms of the woman she loved, loving and hating every single moment.

 

***

 

It was the following morning and Alex had woken up in Kara’s bed alone. It wasn’t a new thing; Kara was often out and about early with her Supergirl duties and then at CatCo. Somehow, though, Alex wasn’t convinced. Something about the Hellgrammite incident didn’t add up. She didn’t buy that Kara couldn’t live without her. She’d made it clear on more than one occasion that she was a grown up and could handle things without Alex, and had been pushing for Alex to live her own life, which Alex was trying to do. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d talked about moving to Metropolis to be near Clark. So why would Alex dying unravel Kara so spectacularly that she had to literally change the timeline to save Alex’s life?

 

Alex took a shower and dressed in clothes she had stashed at Kara’s apartment. She stayed here some weeks more than she stayed at her own apartment, and something about that made her worry. Was she still around too much? Was she smothering Kara instead of helping her be her own person? Was she just literally the worst big sister in the world? And who had Kara been sleeping with? As far as Alex knew, there had been a few guys at college that Kara had been with, but as Eliza had delicately explained to Kara once she turned 16, she would have to be incredibly careful with who she had sex with and also be sure to never lose control. Kara last night looked like she’d lost all sorts of control; wild, her lips bright red and her hair everywhere. It made Alex nervous, to think of Kara with someone who was rough with her that way, in that squirmy strange way that she’d been feeling about Kara a lot. She didn’t understand it, at all.

 

She headed in to work and Winn was there, waiting eagerly to find out what Clark had said to her the night before. She wondered if she should be telling him this, given that he was Kara’s best friend and it was really her secret to tell. But she rationalised it by telling herself that she was the one who’d died, so it wasn’t like it didn’t involve her at all. By the time she’d finished telling Winn what had happened, his eyes were wide and his face almost white.

 

“Dude. You died?” he said, tears welling up, and before she could do anything about it, he was throwing himself across her office and hugging her tightly. She teared up a little herself, blinking them away before pushing Winn away.

 

“Apparently,” she said, shrugging, and he sat back down in his seat hesitantly.

 

“I see why that destroyed Kara,” he said, thoughtfully, and she looked at him, tilting her head, eyes narrowing.

 

“You see, that’s the part I don’t get, Winn. Messing with the space-time continuum, actually changing the timeline? That’s not Kara. I don’t get why Clark agreed, either,” she said thoughtfully, and missed how Winn’s eyes bugged out.

 

“He did it too?” he asked, and she nodded.

 

“Kara must have had a pretty convincing argument to get Superman to do something like that,” Winn said, and Alex nodded thoughtfully. She chewed on a doughnut. It was a bad idea to eat this much sugar, this early in the day, but last night had been tough. She hated seeing Kara in pain.

 

“He did it before. To save Lois Lane,” Alex said, and Winn’s eyes bugged out.

 

“He changed time, too?” he asked, and Alex nodded.

 

“Lois died in that earthquake that Lex Luthor caused in California. So Superman turned back the clock so he could save her.”

 

“Wow,” Winn said thoughtfully, reaching over and taking a doughnut and eating almost all of it in one bite. Alex was too preoccupied to even notice. Normally she would have at least broken one of his fingers for that. “And he was… Kara convinced him that she needed you. Maybe the same way he needed Lois? I… Alex?”

 

“Yeah?” she said, turning to look at him again, licking the last of the powdered sugar from her fingers.

 

“I don’t suppose… do you think that Kara maybe has feelings for you? Like, non-sisterly feelings?” he asked, hesitantly, and Alex stared at him.

 

“You mean like, in a sex way?” she asked, incredulous.

 

“Well, yeah,” Winn said, his brow quirking up a little. “It’s not unusual for foster siblings to fall in love in later life,” he said, and Alex couldn’t even reply. The idea had never crossed her mind. Kara was straight, and Kryptonians were so rigid, Alex couldn’t imagine them even loosening up enough to admit that they had any sexual desires at all, never mind same-sex desires. She’d even wondered if Kara was asexual, at one point or another.

 

“I never considered the idea,” Alex said, and Winn shrugged.

 

“I’m not trying to freak you out or anything. It’s just that Superman turned back time for Lois, but Kara did it for you. It just made my mind connect things, maybe the wrong way,” he said, and his bearing was apologetic.

 

“It’s fine, Winn. I don’t think that’s it, but I guess time will tell,” Alex said, thoughtfully. Kara had told her a while ago that Barry Allen was in a relationship with his foster sister. It just had never occurred to her that Kara might feel that way about her. She didn’t believe that was it, but she had to consider every option. For now, she would just keep an eye on Kara and hope that, since her confession last night, things might go back to normal.

 

***

 

It was week two of Kara sleeping with Lena Luthor. She liked Lena, a lot. She cared about Lena. She was just worried that she would get to the same point with Lena that she had reached with James. Where Lena would be falling in love with her and Kara wouldn’t be able to reciprocate, because she had been in love with Alex practically since she landed on earth. She and Lena had just had some energetic sex in the living room of her apartment – an apartment that was, in fact, the top two floors of a luxury apartment building. The carpet was thicker that Kara’s duvet.

 

“Have you thought any more about the alien detection device?” Kara asked Lena, while she traced lines down Lena’s spine, fascinated by the extreme pallor of her skin.

 

“I have. I made a decision, actually,” Lena said, turning from where she was lying on her stomach to look at Kara. The sight of her lying on her side on the rug by the fire, completely bare, captured Kara’s attention for a long moment.

 

“Oh. Yes. A decision. What did you decide?” Kara asked, after a minute, and Lena smiled.

 

“I’m going to sell the device,” she said, and Kara’s heart sank. “But only to the DEO and others who can demonstrate a legitimate use for that kind of a device – fairness in sporting competitions, for example, or national security.”

 

She smirked, and Kara slapped her arm – very lightly – and pouted.

 

“You did that deliberately. Made me think that you were going to sell it to anyone who asked,” Kara complained, and Lena bit her bottom lip.

 

“You look so pretty when you pout, Kara Danvers,” she said, and Kara frowned a little. She didn’t like thinking about her surname right now.

 

“Kara Zor-El,” Kara said, after a moment, and Lena tilted her head a little in question. “It’s my real name. My birth name,” Kara clarified.

 

“Oh. Wow. Thank you for trusting me with that, Kara,” Lena said, and her eyes were shining.

 

“I just thought you should know. You know, with everything. You’ve trusted me with a lot,” Kara explained, and Lena nodded. “You know, I always kind of got the feeling that you didn’t always like me… I mean, as Supergirl, when you talked to me. I liked the way you talked to me as Kara, but you sometimes didn’t seem to really like Supergirl. It was nice to know that you liked me for me, and not for her,” Kara said, and Lena’s eyes widened.

 

“I… wow. I do like you, Kara. A lot. And we’ve had our differences, you and I, when you are… her. But I do like you, a lot, and the fact that you’re Supergirl doesn’t change that,” Lena said, after a long pause. Kara smiled at her hesitantly.

 

“Are you sure about that, Lena? Because I would understand if you didn’t want to… continue this,” she said, and Lena took her hand.

 

“I want to continue this. I want to see what this is, Kara. There’s something between us and I haven’t felt like this in a long time. I don’t want to scare you, but you mean such a lot to me already,” Lena said, and she bit her bottom lip in that way of hers, and Kara was powerless to resist kissing her. After all, Alex had Maggie and Lena Luthor cared about Kara Danvers. Kara cared about her too. Maybe she could learn to love her.

 

Lena kissed her back with fervour, and it was a long time before Kara had any coherent thoughts of any kind.

 

A little later, before Kara left for the evening, Lena looked at her with those piercing eyes.

 

“Your issues with… sex, Kara. Are they to do with you being Kryptonian?” she asked, and Kara nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. Even after everything they’d done together, she still struggled to talk about intimacy. “I think I might know a way to help,” Lena continued, and Kara looked at her in confusion. Lena kissed her again, smiling brightly at her expression.

 

“You, my Kryptonian puppy, were born under a red star. If we can find a way to replicate the light and radiation of a red sun, you could be just like a human. Like Kryptonite, but without the sickness and pain. Lex had so much research on Superman, I think I might be able to rig something that we can use. If you are willing to try?” she asked, and Kara nodded eagerly. To be able to be intimate with someone, to let go, really let go? That would be the best thing ever. Lena laughed at her wide smile, kissing her again, and they ended up tangled up in each other for another hour before Kara insisted she really had to go home.

 

When she was in bed alone, later, she wondered why she’d been so quick to leave Lena when she had so obviously wanted Kara to stay. Kara didn’t let herself think about how she’d been hoping that Alex might be waiting for her again, like she was the night before. Because she never slept as well alone as she did when Alex stayed. She sighed and turned over, tearing open one of her pillows in frustration when her alarm went off without her having slept at all. An hour later she was at the DEO sparring with Vasquez because Snapper hadn’t dealt well with Lena’s decision to hold her comments on the alien detection device, and had called Kara ‘Argyle Barbie,’ ‘Ponytail,’ and ‘Blondie,’ all in one (grammatically correct) sentence. She was so mad that she almost broke Vasquez’s arm before noticing that the woman had been tapping out for at least 20 seconds before Kara noticed. 

 

“Susan. I’m so sorry,” Kara said, apologetically, and Vasquez nodded in acknowledgement.

 

“I better get back to work, Ma’am, if that’s okay,” Vasquez said, but she was rubbing her shoulder gingerly and giving Kara the side-eye. Kara smiled apologetically and slumped down in the corner once Vasquez was gone.

 

“You okay, Kar?”

 

Kara looked up to find Winn looking at her from the doorway. He turned the Kryptonite emitters down and went to sit next to her, bumping her shoulder with his.

 

“Yeah. Just a little grumpy. Snapper is a… total jerk ass,” she said, and Winn snorted.

 

“Sick burn, Kar-bear,” he said, and offered her a fist bump. She returned it with a grin, and he smiled back.

 

“How are you, really?” he asked, and Kara looked at him a little more closely.

 

“Why do you ask?” she asked, and Winn shook his head, starting to look panicked.

 

“No reason at all, whatsoever. Except that I just saw Vasquez heading to medical instead of back to her station, and you look like you want to break a building in half or something,” he said. Kara frowned at him.

 

“I… I’ve been having a tough time, recently,” she said, and Winn nodded.

 

“Is it James? Because I know you and he were a thing, for a little while,” he said, bumping her shoulder again.

 

“No,” Kara said, incredulous. “I… honestly haven’t even thought about him since we broke up. And Rao, please do not tell him I said that,” she said, quickly, and Winn held his hands up.

 

“Best friend code. It’s unbreakable. I will never tell a soul,” he said, and she smiled at him. She loved Winn, especially now he’d stopped with all the staring and pining.

 

“No. It’s not James. I just… things have been difficult. It just feels harder, you know? Being Kara and being Supergirl. It’s so… heavy. Everything’s heavy. And everyone else is happy, and I feel like I should be too, but I just… I’m not,” Kara said.

 

Winn looked at her in concern.                                         

 

“You know you can always talk to me,” he said, with a small smile, and she smiled back, big and wide and genuine. Winn really was the best friend.

 

“I know, Winn. Thank you. You’re the best,” Kara said, and he got up, holding his hand out to pull her up.

 

“I am the best. And I have crullers on my desk, if you’re quick,” he said.

 

Kara smiled and then disappeared in a blast of displaced air. Winn smiled at the space she’d left behind.

 

***

Alex was on a date with Maggie, at a real restaurant, not in a crummy alien hideaway with sticky floors and questionable food storage practices. She was dressed up, she had makeup on, and Maggie looked beautiful. Incredible. Two weeks before, Maggie had been the one person who Alex couldn’t stop thinking of. Now she was the distraction from what Alex couldn’t stop thinking of. Kara, her foster sister, the woman who had brought her back from the dead only a few weeks earlier. Since Winn had suggested that Kara might be interested in Alex in a non-sisterly way, she’d been thinking about it almost non-stop. How could she not? She’d always thought of Kara as a sister. Hadn’t she? Of course she knew that Kara was beautiful, because she had eyes. But she hadn’t… had she? She’d been twisting her brain into a pretzel trying to figure the whole thing out, and she didn’t know how to proceed. She’d been avoiding Kara ever since, and hadn’t stayed over one night since. But then, Kara wasn’t complaining about Alex not coming by, so clearly Kara wasn’t desperately in love with her, right?

 

“Danvers? Danvers. Are you even listening to me?”

 

Alex’s eyes widened as she realised she had totally zoned out in the middle of a story Maggie had been telling her about getting hit on by an 8 breasted, 3 foot tall alien from the Dagoba system.

 

“I’m so sorry, Maggie. I just… things have been a little intense, recently, at the DEO,” she said, apologising, and Maggie gave her that sweet smile, tilting her head.

 

“Would you like to talk about it?” Maggie asked, and Alex ended up spilling the whole story. Aside from Winn’s suggestion, that was. She didn’t want Maggie thinking that Alex might have a thing for her own sister.

 

“You know, you and Kara have always been close. And she came out in the first place because of you, right?” she asked, and Alex stared at her, wide-eyed.

 

“Um… what?” she asked, her face reddening.

 

“I mean that she came out as Supergirl to save you from that plane. You told me that a while ago, right?” Maggie asked.

 

“Oh, yeah,” Alex said, smiling in relief.

 

“Why, what did you think I meant?” Maggie asked, her smile fading a little.

 

“Nothing. I just… nothing.”

 

Alex cursed herself. She was the best liar in the world, thanks to her DEO training, but throw a pretty girl into the mix and apparently she couldn’t lie for shit. That surely proved that she didn’t have feelings for Kara, though. Right? Because she’d successfully lied to Kara for years about the DEO.

 

“If there’s something else you want to tell me, Alex, you know you can,” Maggie said, and she squeezed Alex’s forearm gently, smiling at her with those dimples.

 

“I know that,” Alex said, and Maggie nodded.

 

“Good,” she said. “You can always be honest with me, Alex. No matter what.”

 

Alex nodded, looking down at her plate where her food lay abandoned. It was one of the nicest restaurants in the city and she couldn’t even concentrate enough to finish a meal with her girlfriend. There had to be a way to fix this thing with her and Kara, and she was determined to find it so she could stop being so distracted. She decided she was going to speak to Clark again and ask him straight out about what Winn had said, so she could get the whole thing out of her mind, once and for all.

 

She and Maggie parted from their date a while later, after a lingering kiss that had Alex feeling unaccountably guilty. She didn’t know on whose account. She had to get this thing fixed, for the sake of her mental health.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena perfects her red sun lamps, leading to Kara having a meltdown of sorts at the alien bar. Meanwhile, Alex is even more worried and manages to get Clark to tell her what's really going on with her foster sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that episode last night was really something. Just a reminder that SuperCorp is not endgame here, much as I like and enjoy the ship. So don't shout at me later, please? Thanks.

* * *

 

Kara had been with Lena every night for the last week, and hadn’t seen Alex at all. She’d seen Winn a few times at the DEO but had run off, pretending she had CatCo work stuff when she’d heard Alex approaching. She did have a lot of work stuff to do, though, because Snapper had been more than pleased with her exclusive interview with Lena about the alien detection device and with the statement she’d been able to finagle from the President afterwards.

 

“You have good instincts, Ponytail. You’re developing good contacts and you’re exploiting them the way a good reporter should. Keep it up and you might not be a total waste of space after all,” he said, gruffly, and she had smiled so brightly that he ended up scowling in her general direction for the following week, even when she did something right, just because he’d accidentally made her happy.

 

Lena was a revelation, taking her mind off everything. When Kara was with Lena, she could almost completely forget about Alex and the hole in her chest that burned with searing frost every time Kara thought about it. Not seeing Alex was horrible, worse even than when Alex had been studying, because she knew that Alex had Maggie, now. Alex hadn’t been in touch much, either. Normally if Kara fell off her radar for any amount of time she would be pushing her way into Kara’s apartment with potstickers or pizza or crullers. She missed talking to Alex about Snapper, about James, about her Supergirl stuff. She missed talking to Alex, period. For her whole life on earth, bar that time when Alex had withdrawn from her because she was secretly training for the DEO, Alex had always been there for Kara. It hurt, a lot, that she wasn’t now.

 

“I’m ready,” Lena called from the bedroom, and Kara snapped out of her reverie, remembering that Lena had finished her calculations and whatever designing and building she’d needed to do, and had developed red sun lamps for Kara to try.

 

“You know, if you want to wait and try these out at the DEO, I don’t mind,” Lena said, leaning on the outside of the door as Kara approached. “I don’t want to be the reason why you get hurt. I suspect your sister would make me disappear if this did hurt you. And they can check your vitals and make sure it’s all safe,” Lena said, rambling a little. Kara held up her index finger to Lena’s lips, and shook her head.

 

“Lena. I trust you,” she said, and Lena’s eyes brightened suspiciously. She’d been getting more and more emotional when they were together, and Kara was worried that Lena was falling in love with her. Because Kara still felt the same way for Lena, which was to say that she cared for her but didn’t have any deeper feelings. She wondered if it made her a bad person, that she was still here, still doing this, even though she didn’t feel the same.  

 

“Let’s try this then, Miss Zor-El,” she said, with a shy smile on her face.

 

The sun lamps worked, and Kara’s powers were only affected while she was under their light. She left Lena’s place the following morning with a stupid grin on her face, Lena standing behind her in the doorway with a smug smile on hers.

 

She made sure that she didn’t see Lena for the following few days. She couldn’t articulate why, if asked. It wasn’t like they hadn’t done plenty of stuff together; intimate stuff. But Kara had always thought that her first (and honestly, her only) lover would have been Alex. That Alex would have been the one to look into Kara’s eyes when she came, gasping, for the first time with Alex’s fingers inside of her. She had always thought that she would be crying out Alex’s name, not Lena’s. And now she couldn’t think about what she and Lena had done without thinking about Alex, and it was freaking her out. She’d been okay with Alex coming out, with Maggie being her new person, until the whole thing with the Hellgrammite and her talk with Kal-El. Maybe if he hadn’t talked to her about it all, brought up the whole “joining her house with the house of Danvers” thing, she might not be feeling this way. But she’d never know, would she, how things could have been with Lena without all of these feelings? Because Alex had died, and Kara couldn’t let that stand. So here she was. In the alien bar, drinking that weird Aldebaran ale or whatever it was that Mon-El had introduced her to, and she was feeling floaty and relaxed.

 

“Hey. Kryptonian. Feet on the floor, please,” M’gann tapped the bar in front of Kara to get her attention. That’s when Kara realised she was a foot off her stool, floating around with a stupid grin on her face.

 

“Sorry, Miss Martian lady, ma’am,” Kara said, saluting, and M’gann shook her head.

 

“You Kryptonians are more trouble than you’re worth,” she mumbled, and Kara narrowed her eyes.

 

“Rude, Martian lady. There’s only, like, two of us left. And we’re very well behaved.”

 

M’gann snorted, looking at her again pointedly, and Kara remembered that she was still floating, and dropped back down onto her stool with a giggle. This ale tasted _bad,_ but it was so _good._

An hour later M’gann hauled her back into her seat by one foot, telling Kara to stay there in a stern voice. The bartender then took her phone and called her last-dialled number, which happened to be Lena, and a fuzzy while later, Kara was in Lena’s town car, Lena strapping her into her chair firmly to discourage any more floating.

 

“Why did you do this, Kara?” she whispered, and Kara smiled at her.

 

“You’re so pretty, Lena. Your eyes are green like the sea in a storm. Did you know that the seas on Krypton were poisonous? We couldn’t even drink the water,” she said, her tongue stumbling over the usually familiar English words. No-one else remembered the colours of the sunset, the feeling of Rao’s light on their skin – so different from the feel of Earth’s sun – and the many hues of the ocean, opalescent and beautiful even though the waters themselves were so deadly. No-one remembered. Astra was dead, even Non and his cohorts were gone, in Rao’s light, if that was Rao’s will. And here she was, the last Kryptonian to remember any of it, on earth, lost and alone without the one person who made her feel as if she belonged. She didn’t remember sobbing, or saying Alex’s name, or telling Lena about Red Kryptonite and what she’d done to her sister. She remembered none of it, and she woke up with her head on Alex’s chest, in her own bed, with a headache the size of one of Daxam’s moons.

 

“Alex?” she croaked out, and Alex woke up with a start.

 

“Kara. Are you okay?” she asked, checking Kara carefully as she always did for bruises or cuts. “What happened to you last night? Why were you so drunk?”

 

“I… I don’t want to talk about it,” Kara said, and her eyes filled. She remembered some of what had happened the night before and she was starting to feel like her head might explode. What the hell was she thinking, drinking like that? It had to be one of the stupidest things she’d ever done. No-one had been there to get her home safely, and no-one was there to stop her if she tried to do something stupid.

 

“You don’t have to,” Alex said, and she threaded her hand through Kara’s hair, seeming to know by some instinct where her head hurt the most. She massaged Kara’s scalp gently and kissed the top of her head, and Kara clung to her, trying to will the tears away. This was where she wanted to be, with Alex’s scent surrounding her, in those strong arms that had always been there when she needed them. She didn’t want to question how she ended up here; she just savoured the moment.

 

Alex stayed to make her breakfast, watching her with concerned eyes, but she didn’t push anything. She told Kara about a few silly things that had happened at work, like the day when Winn had fallen backwards off his chair just as J’onn entered the room, and how two of the junior agents were clearly in a relationship but didn’t want to out themselves as a couple. They’d been discovered making out in the kryptonite training room by Alex, and now they were both terrified of her. Kara laughed in all the right places, enjoying the food. When Alex left, Kara changed and took off in her Supergirl suit, flying above the clouds and letting the sun’s rays heal the pain of her self-induced hangover.

 

Snapper was in fine form that morning, calling her all of his favourite names and sending her out to get his coffee, which was a new low. She hadn’t had to get anyone’s coffee since Cat left. It made her feel oddly nostalgic. She presented him with his drink and he grunted sourly, and there were no assignments on the board for her, so she decided to go and see Lena to apologise for her behaviour the night before. According to Alex, Lena had called her to pick Kara up. Kara wasn’t really sure why, but she couldn’t really see how it could be a good thing.

 

She landed gently on Lena’s balcony, finding Lena at her desk concentrating fiercely on whatever she was typing. Kara knocked on the glass and Lena looked up and, after a second, smiled. She stood and walked over, opening the door, and she leaned forward to kiss Kara gently.

 

“Good morning, Supergirl,” she said, and she was smiling but Kara thought it wasn’t quite reaching her eyes.

 

“Good morning, Lena,” she said, apologetically. “I came to apologise. Alex said you picked me up from the bar last night, but she didn’t really go into detail as to how… she came to be involved. And I figured that, whatever I did, it probably wasn’t… good?” she attempted, and Lena winced a little.

 

“Come on. Let’s sit,” Lena said, leaning over her desk to press something on her desk and telling her assistant to hold her calls.

 

“So. It was bad?” Kara asked, and Lena smiled sympathetically.

 

“You were pretty far gone,” she said, and Kara nodded.

 

“I know. I’m really sorry. I just… I don’t drink, normally, and I think I accidentally drank too much,” Kara said.

 

“I figured that much out,” Lena said. “You were floating around in the bar, and M’gann, the bartender, had to pull you back to earth. Maybe stick to human drinks, next time?” Lena suggested, sympathetic embarrassment all over her face.

 

Kara buried her face in her hands.

 

“Go on. What did I do? Why did you call Alex?” Kara asked, and it came out muffled.

 

“Well. You told me about the red kryptonite thing that happened, and you told me about how you hurt Alex that day? And then you started crying and wouldn’t stop. So I panicked and I called her. She came by and picked you up and took you home. I figured you’d be more comfortable waking up with her than at my place,” Lena said, and Kara nodded, her face still in her hands.

 

“Lena, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I cried all over you like that. I really am never touching that stuff again,” Kara said, apologetically, looking up to find Lena watching her cautiously.

 

“It’s okay, Kara. I’d be lying if I said I had never indulged in a few too many drinks when things were difficult. I suppose I just didn’t realise that you were having a difficult time. You’ve never said anything,” Lena said, and Kara looked away, uncomfortable with Lena’s scrutiny.

 

“Yeah, I… work has been really tough, recently, and the Supergirl stuff can really get on top of a person, you know?” she said, rubbing at the back of her neck nervously. Lena smiled.

 

“I can imagine,” she said, and she leaned forward, then, to kiss Kara. “If you ever do want to talk about any of that, you know you can always talk to me. I mean, we’re friends, first and foremost, right?”

 

Kara nodded, and Lena kissed her again.

 

“I better get back to work,” Kara said, and Lena nodded.

 

“Me too. This company isn’t going to run itself,” she joked, and Kara smiled weakly.

 

“Thank you, Lena. For looking after me last night. I’m sorry you had to, but I appreciate what you did.”

 

“You’re welcome, Kara,” Lena said, smiling, and Kara went to the balcony, giving her another little wave before jumping up and flying off. She didn’t see the smile fall off Lena’s face as soon as she disappeared, being replaced by uncertainty and more than a hint of fear.

 

***

 

Alex had contacted Clark again, and he was due to arrive any minute. Alex’s palms were sweating. She knew that she had to ask Clark this question, but she was dreading the answer. No matter what it was, she didn’t know how she was going to cope with it. The idea that Kara might be in love with her was no longer such an alien concept to her, now that she’d had time to think about it. But the reality of it might be a whole different thing.

 

“Alex, hey,” Clark said, pulling her into a hug as soon as he stepped into her office, Winn hanging on his metaphorical coattails.

 

“Clark! How are you?” she said, and she gave Winn a look that made him freeze in place and then back away.

 

“Good,” he said, smiling that million-dollar smile, and Alex tried to resist the urge to roll her eyes. She was getting on way better with Clark nowadays, she just had to remind herself of that.

 

“So. To what do I owe the summons, Dr Danvers?” Clark asked.

 

“I need to ask you another question. One that you’re not going to want to answer. But before I do, I need to show you something,” Alex said. She showed him a tablet on which a video was playing, obviously shot on a cellphone, of a very drunk Kara floating around in mid-air at the alien bar, singing in Kryptonian to herself.

 

“Oh my… when was this?” he asked, his brow creasing in concern, and Alex put the tablet on the desk and sighed.

 

“It was last night. I got all the copies and threatened everyone who saw it – I mean, it’s an alien bar, so they all know who the DEO are and none of them want to get on our bad side. But Kara was in a bad way. The bartender called Lena Luthor, who was the last person Kara called, and she picked her up,” Alex said, and Clark’s eyes widened.

 

“Shit. A Luthor? Did Kara expose her powers?” Clark asked, and Alex shrugged.

 

“I’m not really sure. Lena seemed nervous, maybe even a little afraid, when I got there. But she knows who I am, so I guess it could just be that she doesn’t like the FBI. But Kara was crying and she wouldn’t stop. She kept saying she was sorry, and she didn’t mean to hurt me. I don’t know why. I took her home and she slept the night through, but she got _drunk_ , Clark. On her own, without me or someone else there to get her home safe. And she exposed her powers. Maybe to Lena Luthor, for Christ’s sake,” Alex said, and Clark looked at her intently.

 

“So, what is it you want to ask me?” Clark asked, and Alex sighed.

 

“After you were here the last time, Winn suggested something to me, and I honestly had never thought of it before… he asked me if Kara had… romantic feelings, for me. If that was why she went back in time to save me. I just… I never thought about it. I would never ask you something this personal about someone else normally, Clark, but Kara is in trouble right now. She needs me,” Alex said, and she was annoyed that there was a note of pleading in her voice.

 

Clark sighed, twisting the fingers of one hand in his fist nervously.

 

“I… when Kara first landed, I didn’t know much about Krypton. Honestly, I barely knew the language; just enough to get by in conversation with her. I didn’t know much about the culture. A lot of what I know now came from the Kelex unit that came on Zod’s ship. So there were a lot of things I didn’t know. I told her that she… that her house was to be joined with the House of Danvers. You remember when she first arrived, that she talked like that, so formal?” He sighed, and Alex slowly realised what was coming.

 

“I meant, obviously, that Kara was to be adopted into your family. She believed I was arranging a marriage. And given that you were the only child of the Danvers family, it was her understanding that you were her betrothed.”

 

Alex’s hands were over her mouth, her eyes wide. Clark looked at her ruefully.

 

“Yeah. Apparently abandoning her wasn’t enough; I had to go and screw up her life for the foreseeable future too by fundamentally misunderstanding her culture.” He sighed heavily again, rubbing at his forehead as if to ward off a headache, and Alex felt sorry for him, for the first time.

 

“She told me, after she saved you, that when you got your first boyfriend, she was heartbroken. She said she never talked to any of you about it; she understood earth culture well enough by then to realise that I must have made a mistake and that you two weren’t betrothed. But I think that she was already in love with you then, Alex,” he said, and Alex gasped despite herself. Hearing it out loud was… a lot.

 

“I think she was really upset when she realised that you were actually gay, because that meant it wasn’t your sexuality that made you not want her; it was just that you didn’t love her that way. She was pretty devastated by your new relationship,” Clark said, and he was clearly uncomfortable telling her this.

 

“It’s okay, Clark. I get it. I don’t think you need to tell me anymore. I can ask her the rest myself,” Alex said, and he looked relieved. “Thank you for telling me this. I’m really sorry I had to ask. I’m just so worried for her,” she said, wearily, and he nodded.

 

“I know you wouldn’t intrude on her privacy unless you were really worried,” he assured her, and Alex smiled at him.

 

“Thanks, Clark. That means a lot.”

 

“Sure,” he said, and he clasped forearms with her when he stood. “Take care of her, and call me if you need me. Anytime, I’ll be here.”

 

“Thank you.” Alex smiled at him and showed him out of her office, where Winn was lurking to talk to his hero again. She grinned and left them to their bromance, sitting in her chair for hours trying to absorb the bombshell that Clark Kent had just dropped on her. Kara was in love with her. Her foster sister was in love with her, and had been since they were teenagers. She was going to need to process this.

 

***

 

Alex got up the courage three days later to call Kara. It was late at night. Maggie had just left, and Alex had probably had a little too much to drink. However, she needed to talk to Kara, and she just needed to cowboy up and do it. She made the call, listening to the dial tone, and Kara picked up after a few rings.

 

“Hey, Alex. Are you okay?” Kara asked, and Alex assured her that everything was fine.

 

“I was just wondering if maybe you could come over, maybe watch a movie with me? We haven’t talked in ages,” Alex said, and Kara made some sort of a weird puffing noise.

 

“I’m a little busy right now,” Kara said, and there were soft murmuring noises in the background. Alex was suddenly reminded that Kara had been sleeping with someone, that night a while back when Alex had waited for her to come home.

 

“You are? What are you doing?” Alex asked, and as she said that, she distinctly heard someone say something in the background.

 

_“Kara, come back to bed.”_

“Kara, are you with someone?” Alex asked, and she heard Kara deny it, but then the voice said something else and Alex froze as she recognised it. It was Lena Luthor’s voice.

 

“Kara, are you sleeping with Lena Luthor?” Alex asked, in a sort of hissing whisper, and Kara was silent. “You are. You’re sleeping with Lex Luthor’s fucking sister? Are you completely out of your mind?” Alex couldn’t help herself. She was angry beyond belief. All of the things she’d done to protect Kara, and Kara was sleeping with a fucking Luthor?

 

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, Alex,” Kara said, suddenly, her voice cold. “I’m a grown woman. I don’t make judgements about who you sleep with, so I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself. I can’t come tonight. I’m busy. I’ll see you at work.”

 

She hung up, and Alex was left staring at her phone in disbelief. Kara was sleeping with Lena Luthor. She went to bed with those words echoing in her head, over and over again. Kara was sleeping with Lena Luthor. Her stomach churned and she slept fitfully, tossing and turning the whole night.

 

The following day, Alex sent Clark a text, and a little while later she got an angry phone call from the man.

 

“Is she out of her mind? Lena Luthor? Her brother tried to kill me. He killed thousands of people, Alex. And Lillian Luthor tried to kill Kara! What is she thinking?” Clark raged, and Alex could only agree. Kara was going to get herself killed or exposed as Supergirl.

 

“I don’t know what to do, Clark,” Alex said, and Clark huffed on the other end of the line.

 

“I’ll come talk to her, Alex. See if I can’t talk some sense into her,” Clark said.

 

Alex sighed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Clark. This is… kind of your fault, I guess? At least the part where you made her think I was her wife to be. And if sleeping with a Luthor is her way of dealing with it, we might just have to wait it out.”

 

There was silence on the other end of the line.

 

“Okay, Alex. You’re probably right. Just… keep an eye on her, okay? Because Lena seems like a nice enough woman, and she has been on our side so far, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Lex was my friend for years before he turned on me.”

 

“Yeah. I will. Take care, Clark,” Alex said, before hanging up. She sighed again, wondering what the hell she should do, now.

 

There was a knock at her office door, and she looked up to see Winn peering in. She gestured for him to come in, and he came in, fidgeting until she told him to sit down. (She scowled at him, too, just out of habit.)

 

“So, listen. I have been keeping an eye on things, you know, at L-Corp? And it turns out… I think Lena Luthor knows Kara is Supergirl. And I think they’re sleeping together.”

 

His words came out in a rush and he winced as he saw Alex’s face darken. Probably expecting a slap, which she would normally deliver at that kind of ridiculous pronouncement. But she knew this one was true.

 

“I know,” she said, and his eyes widened. “At least, I know she’s sleeping with her. I didn’t know Lena knew about her being Supergirl. This week just gets better.”

 

“Shit,” Winn said, and Alex nodded.

 

“Did you – did you ask Clark, about what we talked about?” Winn asked, and she sighed.

 

“Yeah. It turns out you were right,” she said, and his eyes widened even further.

 

“Wow. So, Kara’s in love with you? And now she’s sleeping with a Luthor?”

 

“Yeah,” Alex said, and Winn squeezed her arm sympathetically, before standing to make them both a coffee. She was too tired to even protest. She took the coffee and the donut he produced from somewhere and had demolished both within a minute or so. She needed to start having breakfast.

 

“And how do you feel about her?” Winn asked, and Alex looked at him sharply.

 

“I… I haven’t even got that far, Winn. I’m with Maggie, you know? And she’s special. She’s amazing. And I’ve never thought about Kara in that way,” she said, and she knew she sounded defensive.

 

“Okay,” Winn said, quietly, and she threw up her hands.

 

“How would you feel if I asked you if you’d ever had feelings for James? Or... Hank? Someone who you’ve always had a totally platonic relationship with?”

 

Winn shrugged.

 

“Well, James is totally hot, so I’d probably say… if I had to. And Hank… he’s a little older than I’d prefer, but yeah, I guess I still would,” he said, looking into space thoughtfully.

 

“Are you bi?” she asked, incredulously. Winn shrugged again.

 

“I never really thought about it much. I think we define our sexuality way too much. Especially now we have aliens on earth, and some of them have, like, totally different concepts of gender and sexuality. Like Krypton had this really rigid system going on, and the upper classes wouldn’t even admit to having sex in the first place. And then on Daxam they’re all basically the loosest you could imagine, like sex for them is just like going out for a run, and they don’t really mind who they’re running with, if you know what I’m saying…”

 

Alex held her hand up.

 

“Okay, that is… way more than I wanted to know. Ever,” Alex said, and Winn smiled.

 

“You like me. I know you do,” he said, poking her in the arm playfully. Her glare would have melted his entire face, if she’d been Kryptonian.

 

Stupid Kryptonians, with their arranged marriages and stupid hotness.

 

That thought made her stop. Did she really think that Kara was hot? She could say, objectively, that Clark was hot – half the world wanted to be him, and the other half wanted to sleep with him. And Astra had been… wow. Alex didn’t know how she hadn’t realised, back then, that she was gay, because Astra had given her all sorts of tingly feelings, even when they were trying to kill each other. She’d probably never regretted anything more than having to kill Astra. How Kara had forgiven her for that, she’d never know.

 

“Are you okay, Alex?” Winn asked, and she blinked.

 

“What?” she asked, her eyes stinging, for some reason.

 

“You’ve been staring into space for, like, a minute and a half?” he said, and she blinked again.

 

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

 

“About Kara?” he asked, knowingly.

 

“About Kryptonians. And how they’re all stupidly hot,” she said without thinking. Winn smiled slyly.

 

“Stop! I didn’t mean Kara, I meant, like Astra and Clark… objectively, they’re good looking people. Kara is too, of course. She’s beautiful,” Alex said, and he smiled even wider.

 

“Would you stop?” she said, punching him lightly on the arm.

 

“Sorry, Alex. It’s just… the idea of you and Kara in love… it kind of feels like it’s the real deal.”

 

“Look, Winn, I don’t know how I even… I love Kara. She’s the most important person in my life. But I grew up thinking of her as my sister. I don’t know how to even consider anything else,” she said, but the feeling twisting in her stomach when she thought about Kara with Lena Luthor made her think that maybe she was lying to herself. She knew what the feeling was, she just didn’t want to name it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winn tells Kara more than he should, and there's an accident at LCorp. Injury and some mention of suicidal thoughts in this chapter.

* * *

 

Kara hadn’t spoken to Alex for days, and was avoiding the DEO as much as possible. But then there was some sort of creature than looked like a giant hedgehog trying to eat people, and Kara had to go and fight it while avoiding the spines it kept shooting at her. She managed to knock it out, but got two spines through the torso for her trouble. Alex was there to remove them and to clean her up, taking her back to the DEO to heal under the sun lamps.

 

“You’re looking better already,” Alex said, when she came back into the room to check on Kara’s progress. Kara nodded.

 

“I should be able to go soon, right?” she said, and Alex quirked an eyebrow at her.

 

“Why? Got a hot date?” she said, and her lips were pursed.

 

“Um… We’re supposed to have dinner,” she mumbled, and Alex nodded, her face blank of any sort of expression.

 

“Sure, sure. Well. You have a good time. I have some paperwork to do, and I need to test those quills, so I guess I’ll just… see you later,” Alex said, while backing out of the room. Kara sighed.

 

“Hey, Kar,” she heard, and she looked up to see a smiling Winn approaching.

 

“Hey,” she said, with a small smile. He sat next to her, punching her lightly on the arm, and she snorted at his antics.

 

“So, how you been?” he asked, and she shrugged.

 

“I got stuck by two giant quills from a hedgehog monster. You?” she asked, and he laughed.

 

“I have way too much work to do to be visiting you, or so Hank says. But he gave me that glare thing that’s his version of a smile, so I thought I was safe to come by,” he said.

 

“How is Hank? I haven’t seen him in a while,” she asked.

 

“He’s good. And you would know that, Supergirl, if you ever came to the DEO anymore,” he said, mock sternly. “You avoiding someone?” he asked, too casually.

 

“Alex told you about me and Lena, huh?” she asked, and he shook his head.

 

“What? Me? I don’t know anything…”

 

Kara glared. And pouted.

 

“Fine. Yeah. She told me. So, you and Lena, huh? Is it, like, serious?” he asked.

 

“I don’t know,” she said, with a shrug. “I like her, and she… wait. Can I tell you about this, without you reporting back to Alex?”

 

“Best friend code is unbreakable,” Winn said, seriously.

 

“Okay. Well, you know we’ve been… sleeping together?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, and he flushed a little. Kara didn’t blame him. She was blushing, too.

 

“Well, she came up with these lamps that are like, red sun lamps? So we can… you know, without my powers interfering. So I can be normal when we’re… together like that. Rao only knows how much money she spent, on all of that, and she did it all for me to be more comfortable. She’s really great,” Kara said, but she knew her tone was a little doubtful.

 

“She’s really great, but?” Winn prompted.

 

“I just don’t think I feel the same way about her,” Kara said, and Winn nodded.

 

“I get that. It’s hard to move on, right?” he said, and Kara looked at him in puzzlement.

 

“What do you mean?” she asked, and he fidgeted with the tablet in his lap, biting at his lip before answering.

 

“I… I just thought, maybe there was someone else, that you had… stronger feelings for?” he said, wincing a little. Alex must have been threatening him again, Kara thought.

 

“I… what do you mean? Like who?”

 

“No-one. Forget I said anything,” he said, hastily.

 

“Who, Winn?” she asked, and now she was gritting her teeth. He looked frightened.

 

“Alex. I know you have feelings for Alex,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender.

 

Kara gasped.

 

“How do you know that, Winn? Who told you?”

 

“I can’t tell you,” he said, and she punched him in the arm, holding back about 90% of her strength.

 

“I can throw you into the sun, Winn Schott. Tell me.”

 

“She did. Alex. She found out from Clark, because you were doing all this crazy stuff and he was worried about you, so he told her about the Hellgrammite and why you did it and then she talked to me and now she’s going to kill me and bury me in the desert…”

 

Kara stopped listening. Alex knew. Alex knew that Kara was in love with her. Her foster sister knew that Kara was in love with her, and she hadn’t said a thing. So she obviously didn’t feel the same. Not that Kara had ever believed she would, not since she’d realised that Alex wasn’t actually going to be her wife. She realised she was crying when Winn wiped her face gently.

 

“Kar, don’t cry. It’s not… you need to talk to Alex, okay? Please don’t cry, sweetie. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said, sounding desperate, and she turned into his arms and cried her heart out. She felt like that hole in her chest had just opened up and pulled her in, and she was collapsing in on herself like a black hole. Alex didn’t love her like that. Alex would never feel like that about her, and Kara felt sick and wrong for feeling like that in the first place. Alex was her _sister,_ and she was always going to be alone. Of course she was, because that’s how she’d always been. Sent away by her parents, abandoned by Kal-El, lost and adrift on a planet where she didn’t belong. She cried and cried, dinner with Lena completely forgotten. Winn held her helplessly until she fell asleep, leaving Alex to sit with her for the remainder of the night as her wounds finished healing. Alex stayed until sunrise and then left, and Kara woke up alone, never knowing she’d been there.

 

***

 

Alex was tired. Bone tired. Kara was still sleeping with the LCorp CEO, and was avoiding Alex as much as was humanly (or Kryptonian-ly) possible. Winn had done something, but he wouldn’t talk, even when Alex threatened to bury him in the desert. (It was possible she’d used that particular threat one too many times.) Kara wouldn’t look at her, and when she did, she averted her eyes as soon as Alex saw her. Alex was tired, tired of it all. She couldn’t work out her own feelings, and so she threw herself into things with Maggie. So far they’d had a few dates when they could fit it in around work, and it had all been really fun and occasionally really exciting. So Alex decided that the next time they had a date, she wanted to take things to the next level. It possibly wasn’t the best idea in the world, but it seemed to be working for Kara. According to Winn, Kara spent almost every night at the CEO’s place, now. Alex and Kara’s sister nights were a thing of the past. So tonight was the night with Maggie, and Alex was ready.

 

“You ready, Danvers?” Maggie asked, bumping her arm gently, and Alex smiled.

 

“Sure,” she said. Maggie pulled her down for a kiss and one of the DEO agents nearby wolf-whistled. Alex finished kissing Maggie and then looked over at the guard – Williams – giving him her force ten glare, and he blanched, standing to attention and looking straight forward.

 

“Damn, Danvers. You run a tight ship, huh?” Maggie said, and Alex nodded.

 

“Hank taught me well,” she said, and Maggie grinned.

 

“Let’s go,” she said, and Alex followed her to her bike, where she held on to Maggie’s taut abdominal muscles as they made their way to the beach for a picnic. It had been Maggie’s idea, and it was beautiful, the sunset pink and stunning. They made out for a while on the beach, Maggie’s mouth tasting of the one glass of champagne she’d allowed herself, since she was driving back. When they got to Alex’s apartment, Maggie had her half-stripped before they even got to the bedroom, her jeans landing somewhere near the sink in the kitchen and her boots in two different spots in the living room.

 

“You sure you’re ready for this, Alex?” Maggie asked, her mouth hot on Alex’s neck, and Alex could only whimper and nod, desperately.

 

It was amazing. It was revelatory. She’d never enjoyed intimacy before, had wondered if there was something wrong with her, but now she knew that it wasn’t that. She was just _really_ gay. Gay as in the idea of going down on Maggie hadn’t bothered her at all, in fact it had been something she desperately wanted to do. And when Maggie did the same for her, it made her see stars. She curled up in Maggie’s bed, Maggie’s body snug against her back, and tried hard not to think about any of the things that she was trying not to think about. Like how Kara and Lena had been doing this for god only knew how long. Like how that made Alex feel a little ill, and she didn’t want to think why. She took deep breaths and cleared her mind, and she slept without dreams for the first time in a while. But when she woke, she was still thinking about Kara. While she was in Maggie’s bed, the morning after they’d slept together for the first time. She knew that wasn’t a good sign. Maggie woke and they had a repeat performance of the night before, gasping together in the early morning light, and Alex had to bite her lip to make sure she didn’t call out the wrong name. That was when she realised how much trouble she was in.

 

***

 

Snapper had insisted, once LCorp announced the sale of their alien detection device to the military and other government-approved agencies, that Kara interview Lena Luthor and take a photographer with her to get some pictures of the labs where the device had been developed, along with Lena in her white coat and “some pictures of her nerds, too.” Kara had sighed but she called Jess, Lena’s secretary, to set it all up. It was this morning, and she was supposed to take her photographer, Daniel, to the basement of LCorp to meet Lena.

 

“I can show you where I built the sun lamps, too,” Lena had said, the night before, as they lay in bed in the red light of those same lamps. When Kara closed her eyes, she could almost fool herself that she was in Rao’s light.

 

“Awesome,” she’d said, with a wide smile, and Lena had smiled back before leaning over to kiss her and then the red sun lamps had come into play again, because Lena had done this thing with her fingers, and Kara would probably have levitated right into the air if she had her powers right then. The things a person learned in boarding school.

 

So now Kara and Daniel were on a guided tour, with Lena in her lab coat showing them where the device was tested and developed and built, and they were even introduced to some of the aliens who’d volunteered to be test subjects. Kara actually knew a few of them from the bar, but she’d discreetly shook her head when one of them, Chip, had gone to give her a hug, and then she introduced herself as Kara Danvers and he nodded. Thankfully he played along, and her identity was, once more, safe. Not that her little drinking and floating stunt had helped, there. She was such an idiot.

 

She heard the noise before she fully registered it, and something had her moving, throwing herself in front of everyone else in the lab as something came through the wall next to them, something green and bright, and she had time to think something vague about Lord Voldemort and Avada Kedavra and then she saw nothing but endless black.  

 

***

 

Alex was deep in paperwork when she got the call about an explosion of some kind at L-Corp. Her first thought was that Kara would be devastated if Lena were hurt. But then Vasquez spoke again.

 

“Ma’am, Supergirl is there, and the reports say she’s injured.”

 

Alex didn’t remember much of the journey there, but when they arrived, the building was surrounded by more DEO agents that Alex had ever seen in one place. Two of her best agents were standing behind a handcuffed and sobbing Lena Luthor. 

 

“What happened?” Hank asked, and Alex started when she realised that Hank had been next to her this whole time.

 

“A reporter was injured, by a misfired weapon,” one of Lena’s guards said, and Alex felt like she was none the wiser. Then she remembered.

 

“What did you do to Kara?” she asked, whispering in Lena’s ear, her gun out and pressed to the woman’s ribs.

 

“I didn’t mean to. It was something we were testing, and it exploded. She saved us,” Lena said, sobbing, and Alex backed away in disgust, putting her gun away and walking in to the building. She followed Hank to the basement and, once she got there, one of the newer agents tried to stop her.

 

“Ma’am, you don’t want to see this,” he said, and that just made her see red. She tried to swing at him, but Hank caught her arm and pulled her forward, pushing the agent out of the way. She found Kara in the middle of a pile of rubble, with a wound on her face deep enough to show bone. Alex threw herself on her knees and searched desperately for a pulse. It was there, weak and thready, weaker than she’d ever felt Kara’s pulse before. She shouted orders to the medics surrounding Kara, but had no way of knowing whether they were being followed or not. She didn’t let go of Kara’s hand, her eyes on the wound on her face, the wound that wasn’t healing, for some reason, and felt Hank next to her when they put Kara onto a gurney and pulled her away.

 

“Alex. You’re going with her. Stop fighting me,” he said, in her ear, and she relaxed. He set her down in the ambulance next to Kara’s limp body, and she took Kara’s hand again. When they arrived at the DEO, Dr Hamilton took Kara away with assurances that she would do everything she could to help her heal. They needed to analyse the weapon, to see how it had damaged Supergirl so badly, the doctor said, but Alex wasn’t listening by then. She had her head in her hands. Kara was in surgery, and Kara might not be okay.

 

It was a while later and she felt someone take her hand, tentatively. It was Winn, and she looked at him gratefully, squeezing his hand before returning to staring at the wall.

 

Later still, Maggie was there, holding her other hand, and Alex still couldn’t speak. Kara might die. Lena Luthor made something that could kill Kara. Why? She was almost off her seat and gone to find the woman before Hank grabbed her and pushed her back into her chair.

 

“Alex. Alex,” he said, clicking his fingers in her face, and she looked up at him. “Kara is holding her own. Lena created some form of enhanced Kryptonite plasma weapon. There was some Kryptonite left in one of Lex’s labs. She’s given us everything; the plans, the devices, the Kryptonite. She even consented to me reading her mind to check there was nothing else. What she did,” he said, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms with a sigh, “she did out of fear. When Kara got drunk - which you didn’t tell me about, by the way, Agent Danvers - she told Lena about the Red Kryptonite incident. And Lena became scared that if Kara got too drunk, or was affected by Red Kryptonite again, she might become uncontrollable. Lena Luthor grew up with Lillian and Lex in her head, and some of that rhetoric must have taken root. Because she was terrified, Alex. I promise you, she will never do anything like this again. She saw what that weapon did to Kara. She saw that Kara saved her and her staff rather than saving herself. Any anti-alien thoughts or ideas she might have had… those are finished with, now.”

 

Alex looked at him through tears.

 

“Is Kara going to be okay, Hank?” she asked, and he shrugged gently.

 

“I don’t know, Alex. But she’s alive, at least for now.”

 

It was another four hours before the surgery was done.

 

“She’s stable, for now,” Dr Hamilton confirmed. “I stitched the wound. She has a pretty serious head injury, a cracked skull. It will be a few days before we know how she’s going to heal. How her mental faculties will be. For now, she’s staying under the sun lamps to try to get her body to heal itself,” the doctor finished, and Alex nodded dumbly.

 

“Can I see her?” Alex asked, and the doctor nodded. Alex followed her to the sun room, as it was called, where a couple of the DEO’s medical staff were getting Kara settled on a bed under the lamps. Half of Kara’s face was covered with neat bandages, and her hair had been shaved in several sections. She was going to be devastated. She loved her hair. Alex sat next to her, taking her hand automatically and stroking the skin under her fingers. Kara had to be okay. She just… she had to be.

 

***

 

Two days later Kara woke up, with her mental faculties intact. Dr Hamilton had been concerned that, because the explosion had caused her brain to swell, she might have trouble with her speech or motor functions. She was fine, however, in that respect. But the wound on her face wasn’t healing, even though her powers were fine. Something in the weapon that Lena had created had caused some sort of damage on a cellular level that wouldn’t heal properly, not the way Kara normally healed. It left a scar running from her left temple to just under her nose, a centimetre from her upper lip. With that and her hair, and the fact that Lena had done this to her, however accidentally it might have occurred, Kara had descended into a deep depression and had asked everyone to leave. Well, not asked. More like demanded. When Alex had protested, Kara had turned on her, her eyes so full of rage that Alex had wondered, for a long moment, if there had been Red Kryptonite in that weapon too. However, it was just plain old rage, and Alex had had to withdraw when she realised how upset her being there was making Kara.

 

“Why is she so pissed at me?” she asked, out loud, and Winn moved a little closer, his body language even more nervous than she’d ever seen it.  

 

“I think that might be my fault,” he said. He pulled her to her office and closed the door. “Turn on your little blocker thingie,” he said, and Alex pressed the button.

 

“Tell me what happened,” Alex said, and it was just less than a demand.

 

“I… I told her, about you finding out she had feelings for you. And she was so heartbroken, Alex. I know I shouldn’t have,” he said, and Alex could clearly see the tears in his eyes. “I… she’s my best friend. And she was telling me about how she didn’t feel the same for Lena, the way Lena felt about her, and then… well. She knew I was hiding something and I had to tell her,” he said, misery clearly written all over his face.

 

Alex just sighed.

 

“Fine, Winn. What else does she know? Does she know about Clark talking to me?”

 

He nodded mutely.

 

“Okay. So now she doesn’t trust anyone, and she thinks that she’s alone and unloved on a planet where she doesn’t belong. Great.”

 

Winn looked at his hands, his shoulders slumping.

 

“I have to go, Winn. Thank you for telling me this, at least,” she said, and then she went to the firing range to let some of her feelings out.

 

Two days after that, Kara had recovered enough to be sent home. Dr Hamilton called Alex to come and talk to her.

 

“She’s trying to sign herself out, and she’s… honestly, Agent Danvers. I’ve never seen her like this. She’s so angry.”

 

“I’m on my way,” Alex said, and when she reached Kara’s room she saw that there were actual guards standing around watching Kara cautiously, hands on their weapons.

 

“I’m going home,” Kara growled, for what apparently wasn’t the first time. Dr Hamilton was trying to reason with her.

 

“Kara,” Alex said, holding up her hands, and Kara just shot her a glare before shouting at the doctor again. Her face was uncovered and the scar was… horrible.

 

“Right. Everyone out. You too, Dr Hamilton. I need the room,” Alex said, and the guards saluted.

 

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Dr Hamilton said, as she walked past. Alex nodded. She hoped so, too.

 

“Kara Danvers. You are coming home with me, and I’m not listening to any arguments,” she said, holding up a hand. She kept her best ‘Agent Danvers’ face on, and Kara glared back.

 

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said, and Alex looked at her, hands on her hips.

 

“And why is that, Kara? What could I possibly have done to you to make you hate me so much that you look at me like that?” Alex asked, her tone even and her face blank. Kara immediately looked away, staying silent.

 

“That’s what I thought. Here’s the thing, Kara. No matter who we are in our lives, no matter where we live, you and I are each other’s person. Do you remember, in Grey’s Anatomy, when Meredith and Cristina were there for each other? They called each other their person. No matter what else happens in our lives, Kara Zor-El Danvers, you are my person. And that means you can’t go pushing me away when you really need me. I won’t let you, Kara. And if you argue with me anymore, I’m going to call Eliza. And Clark. And if that isn’t enough, I’ll call Cat Grant.”

 

Kara had started crying somewhere in the middle of that speech, and Alex’s heart went out to her as she wiped at the scar on her face. A scar that was clearly hurting. It looked horribly painful.

 

“That’s… that’s not okay, Alex. You can’t use Grey’s Anatomy and then Eliza and Clark and Cat Grant in one sentence,” Kara said, eventually, and Alex smiled. Things were going to be okay. One way or another.

 

***

 

They had yet to talk about the elephant in the room. Alex had set up a small lab in Kara’s apartment and was working hard on engineering an antidote to the effects of the weapon Lena’s lab had been developing. Lena was, too, back in her own lab, with all of the resources that L-Corp had to offer. Hank was standing in for Supergirl, and Kara Danvers was on sick leave following the accident at L-Corp.

 

“I swear, Alex, I will melt your face if you don’t give me that last cruller,” Kara was saying, as Alex went to open the doughnut box. She had been working almost non-stop on the antidote, bar a few breaks to treat the wound on Kara’s face with a serum that the DEO had designed to promote healing. So far there had been no change in the horrible scarring. There were sun lamps installed in Kara’s apartment, of both the yellow and red sun types, again courtesy of L-Corp’s resources. Just in case Kara ever needed them again, Lena’s letter had said. The letter was about four pages long, and contained approximately eighteen apologies. Kara had declined Lena’s request for a visit. She tried to pretend to Alex that she was angry at Lena, but Alex saw her touch her face when she read the first note, and surmised that Kara didn’t want Lena to see her that way. She wondered whether Kara would go back to Lena afterwards. If she did, Alex thought she might have to arrange for the L-Corp CEO to disappear, never to be found again. Because she wasn’t letting Lena Luthor hurt Kara again.

 

Eliza had rented a room nearby and was popping by most days, to chat to Kara and make her some of her favourite dishes to lift her spirits. It gave Alex a break. Kara Danvers was known as Sunny Danvers, in her workplace, but now the sun had set. She was depressed, anxious, and so far from her usual self that Alex barely recognised her. She wasn’t fighting Alex’s help anymore, but she flinched and moved away any time Alex tried to touch her other than to treat her injuries. Alex said nothing about it, but it hurt more than she could really articulate.

 

Maggie came by often, bringing food and her dimples to cheer up both of ‘her Danvers ladies,’ but something had changed between them, too. Alex knew she was obsessed with healing Kara’s scarring, but she figured that was understandable. When Maggie came by and tried to give her a kiss or a hug, however, she tensed, worried that Kara was watching and that it would upset her. Maggie began watching them both with narrowed eyes.

 

It was three weeks later when things came to a head with Maggie. She’d tried to kiss Alex when she arrived, and Alex had stepped back automatically, her eyes searching for Kara, who was in her bedroom napping.

 

“Okay, Danvers. We need to talk,” Maggie said, quietly, and Alex’s heart sank. “Can you leave her for a half hour?”

 

“Let me just call my mom. I don’t want her to be alone,” Alex said, and Maggie nodded, her expression resigned. Eliza arrived about ten minutes later, and, sensing the atmosphere, hurried them out of the apartment, away from Kara’s ears.

 

“Alex, what the hell is going on with you?” Maggie asked, when they reached a nearby coffee shop and were sitting down with their drinks.

 

“What do you mean?” Alex asked, uncomfortably.

 

“You won’t let me touch you. You’re always watching out in case Kara is watching us. What even is that?” Maggie asked.

 

“I… I found out that it makes her uncomfortable, and everything is so hard for her at the moment, you know?” Alex said, and she tried to meet Maggie’s eyes but had to look away.

 

“Why would she be uncomfortable with it? It’s not like I was trying to hump your leg in front of her, Danvers. Just a kiss. You said she was the most supportive when you came out. What’s changed?” Maggie asked, calm and reasonable, her head tilted.

 

“I… I’m sorry, Maggie. Things just… we’ve been having a few problems, Kara and I,” she stammered out, and Maggie looked at her sceptically.

 

“Look, that might be true, Alex. I mean, I know things have been difficult. But what does that have to do with us? I mean, little Danvers was with that Luthor woman. Is she like, jealous that you’re in a relationship and she’s not?” Maggie asked. 

 

“Something like that,” Alex mumbled.

 

“Something like that how, Alex? I like you. I like you a lot. I mean, I thought maybe we were going to be a real thing. Why is Kara being weird about us? And why are you? She’s a grown woman, Alex. She can cope with you kissing your girlfriend in front of her,” Maggie said.

 

“I… look, I’m sorry, Maggie. She’s in a bad way, I’m just trying to look after her,” Alex said weakly.

 

“Alex, this doesn’t even make sense,” Maggie said, frowning, and Alex just spread her hands helplessly.

 

“I don’t get what’s going on here, Alex. You’re almost acting like she’s your jealous girlfriend, not your sister.”

 

Alex winced. Maggie’s eyebrows ascended.

 

“Alex, does Kara have feelings for you?” Maggie asked incredulously.

 

Alex cleared her throat.

 

“Um. Yeah, she does,” Alex said, palming the back of her neck, her face white.

 

Maggie took a deep breath.

 

“And… do you have feelings for her, Alex?” she asked, carefully. She looked so… so fucking _understanding_.

 

“I don’t know,” Alex whispered. It was the first time she’d even admitted that much out loud.

 

“Oh. _Oh._ ” Maggie’s eyes were wide, and she picked up her coffee and drank it all in one go.

 

“Jesus. I’m sorry, Maggie. I don’t even know how I feel about any of this. When she arrived, she was so lost. I just… I always looked after her, and my mom said she was my sister. But I was already fifteen when she arrived, Maggie. She… we didn’t grow up together, like normal sisters. I don’t understand how I feel. When Clark told me about it, I was… I was floored,” she said, and Maggie reached over and took her hand sympathetically.

 

“Look, Alex. I like you. A lot. But my last relationship ended up with me getting dumped, and honestly I thought you and I were going somewhere. But it sounds like you have a lot to figure out. So I think maybe we should just be friends. Anything else would be way too complicated right now.”

 

Damn. Maggie was so good, and so caring. Alex knew she didn’t deserve this sympathy, the caring, the offer of friendship.

 

“I don’t deserve you, Maggie,” she said, and Maggie laughed.

 

“No, you don’t, Danvers. But you’ve still got me. I might need to take a little break for a while, though. But I’ll still be around if you need me. I hope you and Supergirl work things out,” she said, and stood, kissing Alex’s forehead before leaving her sitting alone at the table, wondering what the hell she was going to do, now.

 

***

 

Kara was hiding from the world. She knew that. Lena, the woman she had thought was falling in love with her, had been secretly building a weapon that could seriously hurt her or maybe even kill her. And said weapon had almost taken half of Kara’s face off. Sure, it had misfired, but that didn’t really help. She’d spent time and money making the thing, had deliberated and made the decision to build something that could kill her own girlfriend. And it was Kara’s fault, because she was stupid enough to get drunk and had told Lena about what Red Kryptonite had done to her. She’d told Lena Luthor, the sister/daughter of anti-alien fanatics, what happened to her when she lost control. Well, had control taken from her, in fact, but that aspect of things wasn’t particularly well-known. The DEO hadn’t wanted the world to know that a mind-altering substance existed that could cause National City’s beloved superhero to want to harm them. (Because apparently National City thinking that she’d thrown Cat Grant off her own balcony for shits and giggles was better, somehow.) Kara was just so _tired_ of it all. She’d been helping people ever since she came out as Supergirl, and all they’d done in return was to try to hurt her. And now they’d succeeded. Kara’s face was a ruin and she was alone. And it _hurt._ Rao, it hurt. Whatever Lena had done had damaged her on a cellular level, Alex said, and she had a constant headache along with pain the whole length of the scar. And the bone underneath. It was pain like she’d never known before, and it was wearing her down. She just wanted it all to end. She’d lost enough, hadn’t she? She couldn’t go back to CatCo looking like the Phantom of the fucking Opera, and she couldn’t go back on Supergirl duty for the same reason. And obviously, she couldn’t do both, because the scar was just too distinctive and she’d be outed as Kara Danvers immediately. So her life as she knew it was over.

 

It wasn’t long after Maggie broke up with Alex that Kara began thinking about the weapon that Lena had created. If it could do this much damage to her, it could probably kill her, right? All it would take was for her to shoot herself with the beam somewhere vital. Her heart was probably easiest. She didn’t really know what the weapon looked like, though, so she waited until Alex was out of the apartment getting food and she had a look at the research in Alex’s lab area. She found the plans for the weapon where she’d expected – on the left side of the desk, because that was the starting point for the problem, and Alex always worked left-to-right. The weapon was shaped like a rifle, predictably enough, because apparently even a human as extraordinary as Lena Luthor wasn’t immune to the allure of a gun. It was curved on the top and was black and green. Green like Lena’s eyes. Green like Kryptonite.

 

Now she just had to get Alex to leave for long enough that Kara could slip out without being noticed. Super-speed would make her faster than the human eye, and she could get in to the DEO and find the weapon and end this before anyone was any the wiser. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is concerned about Kara's state of mind, so she calls one of Kara's friends for some help. It all goes well initially...

* * *

 

So, Alex had been thinking pretty much non-stop about Kara. About Kara’s injuries, about Kara’s state of mind, about how to heal her. And about how she, Alex, felt about Kara. Because she and Maggie had broken up over this. It was time to put her big girl panties on and deal with it.

 

The only problem was that Kara was being; well. Not Kara. She wouldn’t talk about anything at all, other than maybe a few words about whatever show they were binge-watching in between Alex’s research and their sporadic bouts of sleep. Even more worryingly, she wasn’t hungry. She ate because she had to, but since she was barely using her powers, her required calorie intake was similar to that of a human. She was barely eating, though, by her standards, and was visibly losing weight. Alex tried talking to her about it, but anytime she did, Kara just said she was tired and went to bed. And when Alex went after her she feigned sleep until Alex gave up. Even Eliza’s Chocolate Pecan Pie couldn’t tempt her past a few bites. She’d turned down _potstickers_. Alex was officially worried.

 

She called Cat Grant, and Cat agreed to come back from wherever she was immediately. She arrived the following day, looking tanned and fabulous, and Alex was unaccountably relieved to see the woman. She knew that Kara listened to Cat and respected her opinion.

 

“Agent Scully,” Cat said, entering the apartment as if it was a slum, picking up her feet as if the floor was sticky. (It was not; Alex and Eliza were keeping the place way cleaner than Kara normally did.) “Where is Keira?” she asked, and Alex bit back a comment about how she was called Kara and why would the woman even come all this way to help if she wasn’t even going to call her by the right name? But this was their whole thing, Kara and Cat, and Alex had never really understood it.

 

“She’s in her bedroom,” Alex said, and Cat seemed to see something in her eyes, then. She stepped closer.

 

“Is she okay?” she asked, and Alex shook her head.

 

“No. She’s scarred, Cat, and I don’t just mean her face. What Lena did… it broke something in her. She won’t eat much, she hasn’t smiled in weeks. She won’t talk to me. Maybe she’ll talk to you?” Alex said, and Cat’s eyes narrowed.

 

“Why won’t she talk to you, Alex?” she asked, and Alex shrugged uncomfortably. “Come along, Agent Scully,” Cat said, and she pulled Alex along in her wake, to the same coffee shop where Maggie had broken up with her. It seemed like this was the place, now, for uncomfortable conversations.

 

“Now. Get me a latte, and then you can tell me what you’ve done to upset Keira,” Cat said. Alex narrowly resisted the urge to do something extremely painful to the woman, instead sighing and heading to the counter to order a latte and a triple espresso.

 

“So?” Cat asked, taking a sip of the beverage. “Acceptable,” she said. Alex rolled her eyes. “You may continue.”

 

Alex told her the whole sad story, right from the beginning. Cat knew who Kara was; it was one of those secrets that they didn’t talk about, but everyone knew that everyone else knew. It was hard to deny it after Myriad, when Alex and Eliza had come to help Kara and had both probably slipped up at some point or another and referred to her as Kara instead of Supergirl. Not to mention the strangeness of Kara’s adoptive mother and sister being the ones to help Supergirl in the first place. So Alex told Cat everything, how Clark had dumped Kara with them, telling her that their houses were to be joined, and how it had all gone from there. The Hellgrammite, the turning back time, everything. Cat sniffed loudly when Alex told her about Clark turning back time to save Lois, but thankfully she didn’t comment further.

 

“So, let me get this straight, although straight clearly isn’t the right word for this debacle. Keira is in love with you, her foster sister, and has been since she was a teenager. Or, a 37-year-old in the body of a teenager. How I hate that she’s actually only a few years younger than me but looks like that,” Cat said, rolling her eyes before turning that razor-sharp gaze back on Alex. “You haven’t talked to her about it, and she thinks you don’t return her feelings. Not only that, but Clark is the one who told you, which means that Kiera feels betrayed by him, and the only person she had in her corner, Lena Luthor, designed a weapon that accidentally misfired and almost killed Keira. A weapon that she designed specifically because she was afraid of Keira. So Keira is scarred and alone, trapped in her apartment without the outlet of being Supergirl, with the woman who she loves but believes doesn’t return her love. Have I just about summed the situation up?” Cat asked.

 

Alex nodded dumbly.

 

“Yeah. You got it.”

 

“I’m glad you called me, Dana. Can I call you Dana?” Cat asked.

 

“Sure,” Alex said, throwing her hands up in despair.

 

“Kara needs someone in her corner, and right now, that’s me. I’ll be staying for a few days. You can stay with Eliza, I take it?”

 

Alex nodded.

 

“Good. I’ll be staying, and you make yourself scarce until I tell you not to. Now. What are your intentions towards Keira?”

 

“What?” Alex asked, her brow furrowing.

 

“Do you love her?” Cat asked.

 

“I… I don’t know,” Alex said, and Cat glared at her.

 

“Agent Scully. Does she make you feel funny in your lady places? Does the idea of Kara kissing someone else make you feel all bubbly in your tummy, like there are evil snakes in there? Does the idea of kissing her make you blush?” Cat asked, and Alex answered her by blushing after a particularly vivid daydream of kissing Kara, running her fingers through Kara’s long hair, those curls that somehow magically appeared in her hair when she was in her Supergirl costume. And her legs, under that skirt…

 

_Fuck._

 

“You see, Agent Scully? Sometimes it just takes the right person saying the thing at the right time. You love her,” Cat said, and the smug smile on her face just made Alex want to slap her.

 

“Yeah, apparently I do,” Alex said, and her face was on fire. She did love Kara. Like, in a sex way. Her foster sister. Shit shit shit shit shit….

 

“Come along, Agent Scully. I have work to do. And you need to go and see if Lena Luthor has made any headway with healing Keira,” Cat said. Alex sighed and followed along in the wake of the Queen of all Media.

 

Strangely, she was starting to understand why Kara was so enamoured of the woman. Not that she’d ever, ever admit that.

 

***

 

Cat was here. Cat Grant was here, in Kara’s apartment. Sitting on Kara’s couch, talking to Eliza and Alex and carefully not saying anything about Kara’s horrible choices in clothes or apartments or how dreadful Kara’s neighbourhood was.

 

She was sipping a cup of tea with her little finger sticking out, despite the fact that she was drinking from Kara’s Winnie the Pooh mug and not from bone china with a tiny saucer or whatever it was that British people usually drank from. Well, British people and rich people. Like Cat and Lena… Kara headed off that line of thought quickly. Lena was gone from her life now. Lena who was so frightened of Kara that she’d developed a weapon to kill her, even as they’d been sleeping together. Even as Kara had been more intimate with her than she’d been with anyone, even James. She swallowed and Cat looked at her sharply, eyes not flinching away from the huge, ragged scar on Kara’s face.

 

“So, Eliza, Alex. You had to go, you said?” Cat said, and Eliza and Alex stood, making their excuses and disappearing faster than Barry Allen when he needed to pee.

 

“So, Keira. I saw your articles on the environment. Snapper is doing a great job, moulding your abilities. And I was extremely impressed with your article on the alien detection device. Both your first and second drafts. Your first draft was obviously you editorialising and that is not your job, but I admired your idealism and I was proud to see the final version. You learned so much just from that one story. I couldn’t be more proud. It’s in a frame in my office. And Carter asks about you often,” Cat said.

 

“Are you sure you’re not a shapeshifter?” Kara asked, quietly, as Cat sat delicately opposite her. “Because the Ms Grant I know is allergic to giving compliments, and has never, to my knowledge, told anyone but her sons that she is proud of them.”

 

“Nonsense,” Cat said, waving her hand in dismissal. “I told Supergirl that I was proud of her. And since you are she, that means I have told you. Now. Tell me what happened with the Luthor woman. I understand you’ve been unfaithful to me in my absence, flying to the balconies of other CEOs, willy nilly, and you’ve got yourself in trouble. Come on, Keira. Sit with me.” She patted the couch next to her, and Kara went to her, bemused to the extreme.

 

“So. You got yourself involved with a Luthor, and she did this to you,” Cat said, tracing Kara’s scar gently with her forefinger. Kara winced.

 

“Does it hurt, Keira?” she asked, frowning.

 

“Yes,” Kara said, swallowing. “All the time.”

 

“Does Agent Scully know that?”

 

“No,” Kara admitted.

 

“Why not?” Cat asked, tracing Kara’s jawline gently with a thumb.

 

“There’s nothing she can do about it,” Kara said. Cat’s eyes narrowed.

 

“Is that actually true, Kara, or are you just punishing yourself?” she asked.

 

Kara shrugged. What did it matter?

 

“Hmm. Well. Never mind that. What happened with you and that freakishly tall photographer? Jack? Jill?”

 

“James Olsen, your acting CEO?” Kara asked, and Cat waved a hand dismissively.

 

“Whatever. What happened?” Cat insisted.

 

“It didn’t work out,” Kara said, heavily.

 

“Why not? I was ready to jump on that myself if you weren’t, Keira. He has the most biteable…”

 

“Ms Grant!” Kara interrupted, screwing her face up. “I don’t need to hear that. We were together for a while, and then… I realised he cared more for me than I did for him. So I broke it off before I hurt him even more.”

 

“And why didn’t you love him, Keira? What’s not to love? Was he terrible in bed? A selfish lover?”

 

“Ew! Ms Grant! That’s not it. He was fine. He was great, actually. But I just… he wasn’t right.”

 

“So who is right for you, Supergirl?” Cat asked, her gaze sharper than it had ever been.

 

“I have no idea, Ms Grant,” Kara said, shifting uncomfortably, and Cat smiled, showing her teeth. It was the same look she had worn when she realised Kara was Supergirl. Kara moved back in her seat a little.

 

“Keira. Can you make a decent latte in that closet you call a kitchen?” Cat said, unexpectedly.

 

Kara nodded automatically and went to change the coffee over to the fresh bag of Ms Grant’s preferred brand of coffee. She always kept some at home for just such an occasion, never expecting it to actually happen. She made the latte carefully, presenting it to Ms Grant gingerly, and sighing with relief when Cat actually did her happy wiggle in her chair upon drinking it.

 

“Oh, this will do nicely,” Cat said, and Kara smiled. It made the scar on her face pull painfully, so she stopped right away, a tear drifting down from her eye and stinging at the scar again. Cat wiped it away delicately and Kara closed her eyes.

 

She wasn’t sure how it happened, but a little while later she woke with her head in Cat Grant’s lap. Cat was running her fingers through Kara’s hair and it was incredibly soothing. She felt relaxed and at home for the first time since the accident at Lena’s lab. 

 

“Well, Keira. I think it’s about time you fed me something, since I came from the other side of the world to visit with you,” Cat said, and Kara was up and checking her cupboards automatically, finding the ingredients for one of Cat’s favourite meals. Kara couldn’t cook particularly well, because most of the time she was so hungry that she couldn’t even wait for food to be cooked. But she wasn’t remotely hungry right now, so it wasn’t a chore to wait for pasta to boil or chicken to cook. Half an hour or so later, they were eating at the table and Cat was watching her carefully.

 

“So. You’re in love with Agent Scully, Keira. When did that happen?”

 

Kara somehow managed to get spaghetti up her nose. It was a very long and disgusting few minutes later when she was able to return to the table and continue the conversation.

 

“Why would you even think that, Ms Grant? Alex is my sister, you know that,” Kara said, laughing as if it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. The wince of pain her attempt at laughter caused, followed by a few tears, kind of spoiled the effect.

 

“Foster sister. And don’t you know by now that you can’t lie to me, Keira?” Cat said, eating another mouthful of spaghetti daintily. It reminded Kara again of Lena, and the thought made her grimace.

 

“Fine. I’m in love with her. But it makes no difference, because she sees me as her sister,” Kara said. Her eyes were filling again and she wiped the tears away angrily.

 

“Hmm. And yet. Agent Scully recently broke up with her very beautiful girlfriend, I’m told. And is currently spending all of her time and considerable intellect trying to heal you. Even though I am reliably informed that you have been rather unpleasant to her recently. She’s spending all of her time looking after you, to the detriment of her own love life, Keira. Perhaps you would do that for a sister, but I sure as hell wouldn’t,” Cat said.

 

Kara frowned. There was no way Alex felt the same. She’d known for a while now that Kara had feelings for her, and she had yet to bring it up. She was obviously so uncomfortable with the whole thing that she couldn’t even bring herself to talk about it.

 

“Think about it, Keira. Now. Does this dismal place have Netflix, or are we destined to spend our evening staring at each other like two strange cats in a box?”

 

“I thought you hated cat puns,” Kara said.

 

“I am allowed to use them. No-one else can.”

 

Kara rolled her eyes. Cat would never change. She turned on the television and Netflix, handing the remote to Cat when the woman tutted because she wasn’t moving fast enough. They sat in companionable silence for a few hours, binge-watching House of Cards until Kara was yawning into her hand.

 

“Now, Kara. I can sleep out here or, if you can keep your hands off the goods, I can share your bed. No funny business. I don’t want to complicate your life any further. Though if you’d asked me a year or two ago I wouldn’t have complained too much. But now, with this whole ‘in love with your foster sister’ thing, I don’t want you to get confused,” Cat said.

 

Kara rolled her eyes.

 

“It’s fine, Ms Grant. You can sleep in my bed, and I’ll try not to get too handsy,” she said, and Cat grinned at her.

 

“A little handsy is fine,” she said, and Kara smiled again, a little painfully. Cat would never change.

 

***

 

Eliza asked Alex if they could speak before she headed off to speak to Lena Luthor. Alex nodded warily. Coming out to her mother had been a lot easier than she’d ever thought it would be, but she was still on edge when it came to Eliza Danvers. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, for everything to be her fault. So she took a deep breath and led Eliza to the same coffee shop she’d been having her other uncomfortable conversations. She didn’t want to end up somewhere she couldn’t escape from, so this was perfect. Alex got them some drinks and sat down opposite her mother, chewing on a fingernail nervously.

 

“Alex, honey. You don’t have to be nervous,” Eliza said.

 

“You know, that sounds like something that old Eliza would have said to me, right before she pounced,” Alex said, with a small smile, and her mother smiled back at her.

 

“Well. I’ve had a few realisations recently, and one of those is that I have been extremely unfair to you. Since Kara landed, actually. And then when your father died. I left Kara in your care, and then I criticised every little thing you did. I know I’m never going to win mother of the year, but I do love you, Alex. And I love Kara. I want what’s best for you both,” she said, and there was an odd look in her eye that made Alex wonder how much Eliza had picked up during these last few weeks.

 

“Oh… kay, mom. So what did you want to talk about?” Alex asked, wishing she had a beer. Or some Scotch. Or both.

 

“I guess I was going to ask you if there was something you want to tell me. About Kara. About you and Kara, specifically. You know, you’ve always been so close, and now it seems like all of that is just… gone. And I asked myself why. I could only think of one reason,” Eliza said.

 

Alex just looked at her with wide eyes.

 

“I won’t make you tell me anything you don’t want to, honey. But Kara… she will always be part of our family, and that will never change.”

 

Alex’s eyes were bugging out, she was sure. Was her mom saying what she thought she was saying? It couldn’t be, could it?

 

“Mom, what are you…”

 

“You can tell me anything, Alex,” Eliza said. So Alex did.  She told her mother everything, from when Kara had first arrived and thought she was marrying into the Danvers family, to her heartbreak over Alex’s first boyfriend, to what had happened recently, and how Kara felt alienated from everyone because of how things had happened. At some point during the telling of the tale, Eliza’s eyes had filled, and she pulled some tissues from her purse to wipe her eyes. Alex’s heart wrenched in her chest. Her mom was disappointed in her. She felt tears pricking at her own eyes, then, but Eliza reached over and took her hand.

 

“No, Alex. That’s not why I’m crying. I can’t believe that you _died_. I knew your job was dangerous – obviously, after what happened to Jeremiah. But I never thought it would happen to you, honey. Thank god Kara was there.”

 

“But… anything could have happened, mom!” Alex protested. “Kara could have ended up being hurt because she tried to go back in time. She could have gotten the attention of some other aliens who decided to kill us all. It was all my fault!”

 

“Alex. Kara would do anything for you. And I would stand with her. I would have told her to do it, had I been there. How could you think any different? I love you, you’re my daughter,” Eliza said.

 

Alex was powerless to stop the sobs that escaped from her, then, and her mother stood and hugged Alex’s head to her abdomen until she’d cried herself out. A few minutes later, the staff at the coffee house dropped some sticky buns and fresh coffee at their table, on the house. Eliza asked why, in a whisper, after the staff had disappeared.

 

“I think they think I’m dying, or something,” Alex said, stifling a hysterical giggle. “I’ve been here three times, and each time it’s been this whole thing. Like, Maggie broke up with me, and then I was talking to Cat, and now you.”

 

Eliza snorted, and both Danvers women stared at each other for long moments before turning to the cake and eating it, shrugging.

 

“So. Kara is in love with you. We’ve established that. How do you feel about her?” Eliza asked, and Alex took a deep breath.

 

“I’m not... I love her. Of course I do. But I never thought of her that way, before. At least, I don’t think I did? I mean, when I came out I remembered all this stuff about Vicki and some of the other girls I hung out with, but never Kara,” Alex said.

 

“And now?” Eliza asked, eating another forkful of sticky bun.

 

“I… I think I might. Have feelings for her,” Alex said. Her voice was shaking. Eliza reached over and squeezed her hand.

 

“Okay, honey,” she said, and Alex looked at her incredulously.

 

“Is that it? Is that all you have to say? I’ve just told you I might be in love with my little sister, and you just say okay?” Alex asked, and Eliza winced.

 

“Alex. Kara landed when you were almost fifteen. You didn’t grow up as babies together. I have been doing some research. It’s not uncommon for foster siblings to fall in love later in life. There is no biological reason for you not to be in a relationship, if that’s what makes you both happy. You’re not even the same species! I won’t pretend to be completely comfortable with it, but I want you both to be happy. And you’re both not. Kara is miserable, so miserable that I don’t know how to help her, and you – you’ve lost that light you had, so briefly, when you started dating Maggie. At the very least, I think you should explore the idea of being in a relationship. Go on a date, do whatever it is that young people do nowadays. Go see a Star War,” Eliza said, and her face so straight that Alex didn’t get the reference, first time round.

 

“Mom. Did you just quote Arrested Development to me?” she asked, outraged, and Eliza laughed.

 

“I did, honey. I have a lot of free time in the evenings, so I have been Netflix and Chilling all by myself for a long time,” she said, her expression mournful. Alex made a face.

 

“I hope you don’t know what _that_ reference means, mom, because otherwise I’m going to have to get out the brain bleach,” Alex said, and Eliza giggled.

 

“Gotcha,” she said, and smiled.

 

“Returning to the subject in question, I think you should talk to Kara. I won’t stand in your way. It’ll take some getting used to, Alex, but if it makes you happy, I will adjust. We all will,” Eliza said, and they stood up and hugged.

 

“Thanks, Mom,” Alex said, into her mother’s shoulder. Eliza just squeezed her tighter.

 

“I love you, Alex. I love you both, so much.”

 

***

 

Cat, despite her sly comments, kept her hands strictly to herself. Or rather, she kept them away from any unsuitable areas of Kara’s body. She did, however, enfold Kara in her arms and hold her while she cried.

 

“You’ve been holding this in for too long, Kiera. It’s time you let it all go before it poisons you,” Cat had murmured, and Kara had let it all go, gratefully. She gave it all to Cat and trusted her to sort it out. After she had cried herself out, she fell into an exhausted sleep. Cat ran the fingers of one hand through Kara’s hair while typing on her phone with the other.

 

_Agent Scully_

_I believe I’ve made some progress here. Have you had any luck with the Luthor woman?_

_Cat_

She received a response a few minutes later.

 

_Ms Grant_

_The Luthor woman is on to something. She looks worse than I do, and that’s saying something. I’m not sure she’s slept since Kara was hurt. I sent her home with an Agent who’s been told to sedate her if she doesn’t sleep. I’m going to stay here and work on her idea. If you need anything, call._

_Thank you for this, Cat._

_Dana_

Cat smiled at that. She knew Alex’s name, of course. She always had. But it was just her way; to keep people confused and off balance. Alex playing along made her smile. Her smile faded as she put her phone away and turned to look at Kara’s scarred face again. The girl was so beautiful, scarred or not. Cat was fairly sure that Agent Scully would be able to heal the girl’s face, but she wasn’t so sure how Kara would deal with the psychological scars. Her last year alone had been trauma after trauma. The weird plant thing that had taken her back to her planet, to her dead family, in a dream world. Followed by the loss in the real world of her Aunt, her last relative from Krypton besides Superman. And at the hands of her sister, no less. Not to mention the Red Kryptonite incident, and then lifting a million-tonne spaceship outside of earth’s orbit and almost dying in the attempt? It was a wonder Kara was still standing. (It had taken some time for Cat to piece together all of those incidents, but once she’d realised the whole story, she’d been staggered by Kara’s strength.) And now, with what Lena had done, and Alex’s death – even if it hadn’t stuck – Cat wasn’t sure that even she would be able to cope with that much upheaval. Kara was so resilient. Cat wasn’t going anywhere, this time, until she knew that Kara was okay.

 

During the next few days, Cat coaxed Kara out of her bedroom with little tasks like making Cat coffee or meals. She even managed to get the girl to show her some of her paintings. But anytime the conversation turned to Alex, Kara shut down. Cat wasn’t sure how to approach the problem, other than head on.

 

“Keira!” she yelled, on the second afternoon of her stay at Kara’s apartment. Kara came running in; she’d been asleep in her bedroom after a few tears that morning. “I need a latte,” Cat said, gesticulating with a fingernail towards the kitchen as she tapped away on her tablet.

 

She had been watching Kara closely, and had observed that she had shrunk in on herself. And it was odd to see her without her young men sniffing around her. Cat thought a bit of good old-fashioned fun might bring Kara out of herself a bit. She sent her driver to pick up Carter from school and summoned James, Lucy and the cardigan hobbit.

 

Kara was sitting next to her, waiting for further orders, when the doorbell rang.

 

“Kara, see who that is and then order me some pizza. And some Chinese. I’m hungry,” Cat said, and Kara obeyed her automatically, moving to the door. Cat held her breath. Whether this afternoon was a disaster or not would depend on whether Kara’s friends could refrain from staring at the girl.

 

“Kara!”

 

It was Carter who greeted Kara first, and his obvious exuberance at seeing her set the tone for the rest of the day. The Superfriends had obviously been missing their Supergirl. They were all smart enough not to stare or act pitying, and they played Monopoly (Cat won) followed by Taboo (Cat and Kara won) and then Pictionary (Cat and Kara, once again, won). Kara was smiling and, even though it was obviously paining her to do so, she looked happy for the first time since Cat had arrived.

 

Her friends left a while later and Carter fell asleep on the couch, so Cat left him there in his Superman pyjamas and sent Kara to wash her face and brush her teeth before bed. She knew she was babying the girl a little, but Kara needed someone else to take over for a while. It was part of their dynamic; always had been, and Kara had always needed that, as a break from her other responsibilities. Cat held Kara again while she slept, texting Alex again last thing to keep her up-to-date. Alex’s response was short.

 

_Cat_

_Thank you. I can never, ever thank you enough for this. I’m nearly there with the cure. Lena is back in the lab, looking a little less like a walking corpse. But she’s come up with a treatment and once it’s synthesised I think we can cure Kara. So just keep her busy, will you?_

_Thank you again._

_Dana_

Cat smiled. She didn’t notice that Kara had woken up and had seen part of the message – the section telling Cat to keep her busy. When she woke the following morning, Kara was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara tries to carry out her plan, and Alex tries to stop her.

* * *

 

Finally, the super-healing serum (Winn kept calling it that and it was sticking) was ready. Alex was exhausted, Lena was exhausted – hell, half of LCorp were working on it and they were _all_ exhausted. But the serum was ready. Now they just had to get Kara into the DEO and do the surgery in the kryptonite room.

 

Alex was on her way to the DEO when she got an alert on her phone. It was an automated alarm she’d set up on her lab. No-one was allowed in there when she wasn’t there. Everyone in the DEO was aware of that rule. So no-one should be there. Alex pressed a few buttons and camera footage from the lab came up on her phone’s screen. She watched as Kara moved around her lab at super-speed, obviously looking for something. Alex called Hank immediately.

 

“Hank, why is Kara in my office?” Alex asked, while telling her DEO driver to step on it.

 

“I have no idea, Agent Danvers,” Hank said, his voice thick with concern. “Let me go and investigate.”

 

He hung up, and Alex was left waiting, chewing on a nail nervously. What could Kara be doing at the DEO? She didn’t need anything there. They’d already tried the sunlamps on her scars to no effect. And if that was what she wanted, she could have just switched on the new lamps in her apartment.  Alex’s unease grew. Something wasn’t right. Her phone rang and she answered it immediately.

 

“She’s found the remains of the weapon that scarred her, Alex. I believe she wants to use it to harm herself,” Hank said, urgently, into her ear. Alex told the driver to get there as fast as he could.

 

“You need to get that thing away from her,” Alex said.

 

“I am aware of that,” Hank said, carefully. “I’m not sure I’m fast enough to get it away from her. I think I can stop her from using it, though.”

 

“Good. You do that. I’ll be there in 2 minutes, Hank. Please. Don’t let her do this.”

 

“I’ll die first,” he said, simply, and Alex held back a sob with difficulty.

 

The following two minutes were the longest of Alex Danvers’ life. Since Kara landed, she’d been the centre of Alex’s life. If you’d asked her a few months ago, she might have seen that as a negative thing. But now? She needed to get to Kara, needed to heal her. Needed to tell Kara how she felt. Because she was in love with Kara, and they had Eliza’s blessing to be a couple if that’s what they wanted.

 

Alex didn’t even wait for the car to come to a complete halt – she was out of the car and almost through the door before the driver could put on the parking brake. She followed the pointing fingers to her lab towards the back of the building, where there was a tense standoff going on. Kara was at the back of the room, holding on to the remains of the weapon that had hurt her so badly, and J’onn was standing by the door, trying not to startle her, with several DEO agents at his back, weapons out.

 

“Kara,” Alex said, quietly, stepping through the door with the healing serum in her hand. She put it down, gently, on the work surface next to her.

 

“Stay back, Alex. You need to just leave me alone. I’ve had enough. Don’t I get to choose? Please? I’m so tired,” Kara implored, tears spilling from her eyes. Alex stepped forward a little.

 

“Kara. I’m here to help you. Please. Don’t touch that damn thing. It hurt you enough, before. If it goes off in here, it might hurt everyone in the building. Please, Kara. Talk to me,” Alex begged, and Kara smiled weakly.

 

“I want it to hurt me, Alex. I want it to end this for me. I’ve had enough pain. Aunt Astra, and the Black Mercy, and finding out my dad was behind that virus. And then Lena. Jesus, _Lena_. She did this to me just out of _fear_ , Alex. Imagine what people would do if they really hated me. Please, Alex, just let me go.”

 

Kara was sobbing now, and Alex along with her. She’d never seen such naked pain on anyone’s face, never mind her sunny foster sister’s. Kara was such a ray of sunshine. How had she come to feel like this?

 

“Kara. Please. Talk to me. Just me. Everyone else will go, and you and I can talk,” Alex said, and Kara laughed bitterly.

 

“You’re the last person I want to talk to,” she said, and Alex’s heart clenched.  She understood why Kara felt like that, but it still hurt.

 

“Kara. Please. Let me talk to you. Then if you still want to do this, I won’t stop you,” Alex said. J’onn and the DEO agents behind her made strangled noises at that, but Alex waved at them to stay back. Kara looked at her for a long moment before nodding.  

 

Alex turned to J’onn, nodding when he asked if this was what she wanted. She closed the door behind her and sat in a chair, pulling it closer to Kara.

 

“Stop. That’s close enough, Alex,” Kara said. Alex stopped.

 

“We need to talk, Kara,” she said, and Kara rolled her eyes.

 

“Now you want to talk? After months? After knowing how I feel about you, and saying nothing? Why bother, Alex? It’s clear what you think.”

 

“Kara. Nothing about this is clear or obvious, okay?” Alex said, reaching forward gently to touch Kara’s knee. Kara pulled away from her touch.

 

“Kara. When Clark told me what you’d done, I didn’t understand. Because all I knew was that you’d turned back the clock to make sure I lived, and I didn’t get why you would use your power that way. But then… you got drunk, and exposed your identity to most of the alien population of National City, and I got really worried. That was when I spoke to Clark again, and that’s when he told me about how you felt. I was a little shocked at first. I hadn’t ever considered that you might feel that way about me. Because mom had always told me you were my sister, ever since you landed.”

 

Alex tried to get Kara to meet her eye, but she was staring at the floor, her arms wrapped around the remains of Lena’s Kryptonite weapon.

 

“It took me a while to absorb it. And then, when I was ready to talk to you about it, I found out that you were seeing Lena Luthor. Do you remember, when I called you and asked you to come to my apartment to watch a movie?” Alex asked, and Kara nodded, her eyes still on the floor. “I wanted to talk about it then, and you… you were with her, and I was worried, and I said some things… So that’s how that went. And I was with Maggie. And then… well. Lena freaked out after you told her about the Red Kryptonite thing, and she did this to you.”

 

Alex took a chance, leaning forward to touch Kara’s face gently.

 

“Please,” Kara said, through clenched teeth, tears running freely down her face.

 

“Listen to me, Kara,” Alex said, moving closer still and running a hand through Kara’s hair. “Please. I love you. Please don’t do this to me. I can’t live without you.”

 

Kara shuddered, still looking away, but she was leaning into Alex’s hand now. Alex figured that was a win, in the circumstances.

 

“Kara. Look at me?”

 

Kara looked up, slowly, and Alex smiled at her.

 

“I love you, Kara. Please. Don’t leave me. Right over there, on that table, is the serum that will heal the damage to your face. In a few days, you’re going to be back to your old self. You can go back to work, back to being Supergirl. And you and I… we need to talk about us, about what all of this means,” Alex said, and Kara’s face darkened.

 

“We don’t need to talk about it at all, Alex. It’s obvious that you don’t feel the same,” Kara said, stubbornly, her hands tightening around the weapon.

 

“Kara. Like I said. Nothing about this is obvious. I love you. And I can’t live without you. So please, put that damn thing down and come here,” Alex said, holding out her arms. Kara looked away from her again, and once again tears were streaming down her face.

 

“Alex. I don’t want to try, anymore. I am so tired of being the last one, of being lonely. I thought, with James and then Lena that maybe I could have something, could have a real relationship. But that literally blew up in my face. I don’t want to live like this anymore,” Kara said.

 

She started to move the weapon, so Alex acted on instinct. She threw her body forward, finding Kara’s lips with her own and kissing her. It was chaste at first but then Kara seemed to realise what was going on. She kissed back, hungrily, using her tongue and teeth. Alex did the same, slipping her tongue into Kara’s mouth and tasting every inch of it. It felt like a kiss should feel. Like the way it had with Maggie, but magnified by about a million. She was already panting for breath and she hadn’t even touched Kara. Her brain kicked in, then, and she took the Kryptonite weapon from Kara’s suddenly unresisting fingers, without pausing their kiss. She set it aside, onto the table next to them. Their hands were free, then, and Kara’s went around Alex’s neck, her fingers twisting into Alex’s short hair. Alex slid one hand up to cup the back of Kara’s neck gently as she continued to kiss her, losing herself in the taste of the woman she’d been in love with since they were both teenagers. She was dimly aware of J’onn making his way into the room silently and taking the weapon from the table, moving back out again almost imperceptibly. By then Kara had turned them around and was pushing Alex up against the wall, her fingers tightening in Alex’s hair, making her scalp tingle pleasantly.

 

“I love you, Kara,” Alex breathed, when they took a second away from each other’s mouths. Kara was kissing her neck, and words were hard, but she managed to get the important ones out.

 

“I love you,” Kara said, her mouth hot on Alex’s neck. There were still tears streaming down her face, but judging from the colour of her cheeks and the hand in Alex’s hair, clutching and pulling, she was much happier than she had been.

 

“I love you,” Alex said, again, as Kara bit her neck, her words coming out in a moan. “I love you,” she repeated, and Kara lifted her head and kissed her again. Alex’s head was spinning. She couldn’t understand why they had never done this before. It felt like coming home and falling and flying and drowning all at once. Kara’s scent was all around her, and her hair was silk between Alex’s fingers. When she pulled on that hair, Kara made a deep, guttural noise in her throat, and started to move against Alex in a way that she found she wasn’t ready for. She pulled away and took a deep breath.

 

“Kara,” she said, gently, trying to get her attention. Kara’s mouth was already at her neck, hot and wet and so, so tempting. “Kara, please. We should stop. We’re at the DEO, Kara,” she said, and that was the splash of cold water that Kara needed. She pulled back, and her face was flushed and her lips were red and swollen. She looked beautiful, and Alex’s heart swelled at the sight.

 

“Is this real?” Kara asked, eyes wide.  

 

“Yeah, Kara. It is,” Alex said, gently, pushing the hair out of Kara’s eyes. “It’s real. We’re here, together. I’m yours.”

 

Kara blushed, her eyes widening. Alex touched her face gently, tracing the scar delicately. Kara winced slightly, and Alex pulled her hand away as if she’d been burned.

 

“Kara, have you been in pain this whole time?” she asked – no, demanded.

 

“Yes,” Kara admitted, and Alex glared at her.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to do anything,” Kara said, shrugging.

 

“Kara Zor-El Danvers, you’re an idiot,” Alex said, crossing her arms indignantly. “Did it not occur to you that there are red sun lamps in your apartment, now? I could have switched those on and found an analgesic that works for you. You just had to tell me.”

 

Kara looked away.

 

“You were punishing yourself, am I right?” Alex said, and Kara just sighed.

 

“You don’t deserve this pain, Kara. You didn’t do anything wrong. You trusted someone, and they hurt you. It was Lena’s fault, not yours. Don’t ever think that this was your fault. Please, Kara,” Alex said, her fingers touching Kara’s jaw reverently.

 

“I did this to myself, Alex,” she said, and Alex shook her head.

 

“Kara. You didn’t deserve this. Lena was frightened and she did something stupid. Like, ridiculously stupid. She didn’t want to hurt you, though. It was an accident. I’ve talked to her, a lot, actually. I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I believe that she didn’t mean for any of this to happen. She has barely slept since the accident. She’s been finding a cure for the damage the weapon did to you. We have it. We have a way to heal you. And I know you need to heal on the inside, too,” Alex said, gently, “but we can do that together. You and me, Kara. We can get through this together. Please, Kara. Trust me,” Alex said, imploring. Kara looked at her and the pain in her eyes made Alex’s heart stutter in sympathy.

 

“Do you promise? That you’ll be here after?” Kara said.

 

Alex nodded. “You will never get rid of me, Kara Zor-El,” she said, and Kara’s smile in response was wide. Alex leaned forward a little, closing her eyes, and her lips met Kara’s again. It was a simple kiss, a promise. Kara smiled and Alex led her out of the room to medical, pausing only to snatch the serum that would heal Kara for good.

 

***

 

It was two days later. The surgery had been long and involved excising the damaged parts of Kara’s skin along with part of her cheekbone and skull before dosing her with the serum. The serum, which they’d dubbed “liquid sunlight,” healed Kara on a molecular level. She was still asleep, but she was sleeping peacefully, without pain. Alex had run enough brain scans to be sure of that.

 

Alex was waiting. Waiting for Kara to wake, and for them to have the talk they’d been waiting for. The extra time she’d had to absorb everything that had happened, to absorb their kiss, had really helped. She was ready for them to try this out, a real relationship. But she was still scared. Her mother might accept their relationship, however reluctantly, but they still had to come out to everyone else who didn’t know.  James, everyone at the DEO, and everyone at CatCo for a start. It was a big adjustment. Much bigger than Alex realising that she was gay in the first place.

 

“Hey, Alex,” Winn said, coming in to check on her and Kara. He handed her a wrapped sandwich and an apple and she groaned gratefully.

 

“Thank you. I don’t know when I ate last,” Alex said.

 

“Yesterday. Lunchtime. I tried to bring you dinner last night but you were curled up around Kara and I swear you barked at me when I tried to wake you,” Winn said, grimacing.

 

“Sorry,” Alex said, bumping his shoulder with hers. He sat next to her, opening his sandwich, and she saw what was in it and held hers out to him, resolutely.

 

“Really?” he said, protesting, and she raised an eyebrow. He swapped their sandwiches with a sigh.

 

“I hate egg salad,” he grumbled, and Alex shrugged.

 

“I’m allergic,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.

 

“So. How long is she going to be out?” he asked.

 

“I don’t know. As long as it takes for everything to heal,” Alex said. She wasn’t worried, and he relaxed when he saw her relaxed body language.

 

“You sure she’s going to be okay?”

 

“Physically, yeah. Emotionally? That’s a whole other thing. She has had the worst year since she came out as Supergirl,” Alex said.

 

“She really has,” Winn agreed. “Has she ever, like, gone for therapy or anything?” he asked, and Alex shrugged.

 

“Not that I know of. But it might be time. I’ll speak to J’onn about finding someone suitable,” Alex said, her mouth full of tuna salad. “Did you bring any donuts?” she asked, mouth full, and Winn gave her a disgusted look.

 

“I thought Kara was the one with the terrible table manners in the family,” he said, and Alex winced. “Oh. That’s gonna get awkward,” he said, and Alex nodded.

 

“Yeah,” she said. She had been thinking and re-thinking and overthinking so much that she’d been round in circles more times than Kara had circled the world to turn back time.

 

“You know, if Kara had been my foster sister, and if I’d had any chance at all with her, I would have fought every single person on this earth for the chance to be with her. And obviously I would have died horribly, because I can only win fights when there’s a video game involved. But Alex, she’s worth it. She’s worth every harsh word, every time someone makes you feel bad, every weird look you get from people who don’t understand. She’s worth it, Alex. She literally fell from the stars and she _loves_ you, Alex. Don’t let other people’s perceptions or whatever be the reason you are unhappy for the rest of your life, Alex. Because if you let her go, you will be.”

 

Alex stared at Winn, her mouth open.

 

“Dude, close your mouth. I can see your food. Tuna does _not_ look good half-masticated,” Winn said.

 

“Do you… did you mean all that?” she asked, finally closing her mouth. Winn reddened.

 

“I do. I mean it. Kara is worth anything, Alex. And if you feel even half for her what I used to, then you will do anything to keep her. You’re not blood sisters. Kara has always seen you as the woman she loves. It’s just taken you some time to catch up. The stigma of being a foster sibling doesn’t matter, in the great scheme of things. It’s… it’s a small, tiny price to pay for the love of someone like her. You know how amazing she is, Alex. There is literally no-one like her on this earth. Not even Clark. He’s human, with a Kryptonian body. She’s Kryptonian. She’s the last. And she came out as Supergirl when? When _you_ were in danger. That’s when she put herself at risk first. Whatever else you are in this world, you’re the person who inspired a superhero to be who she is. Don’t fuck this up, Alex,” he said, seriously, his eyes holding hers. “Don’t fuck it up.”

 

Alex nodded, and a moment later Kara began to stir. Alex took a deep breath. Showtime.

 

***

Kara had been known by many names during her too-long life. Kara Zor-El, daughter of the great house of El, bound for the Science or Magistrate’s Guild. Kara Danvers, secret alien and foster daughter to Eliza, Jeremiah and foster sister of Alex. Keira, Karol, Kim, Kanye, and rarely Kara, assistant to Cat Grant. Kara Danvers, reporter for CatCo Magazine. Supergirl, the saviour of National City and occasionally, the entire world.

 

One of her favourite names, however, was Sunny Danvers. It was a nickname coined by her co-workers at CatCo, inspired by the way she dealt with Cat’s mercurial moods and demanding nature. It was a name that Ms Grant had thrown at her once, in spite. But Sunny was what Kara _strove_ to be. She was the lone survivor of a planet that was gone from everything but her memory. She owed it to each member of her race to live her life to the fullest. She carried the weight of a planet on her shoulders but she would rather carry that burden with a smile than the way she’d observed some others dealing with theirs. A certain bat, for example, acted like the death of his parents was the most anyone had ever lost, ever. He had no _idea_ what Kara Zor-El carried on her shoulders. But instead of telling him that, instead of railing against the injustice of it, the pain of living on an alien planet alone when her parents were at peace in Rao’s light, Kara lived. She lived life to the fullest. She ate with relish and abandon. She talked to her food and thanked it for existing. She smiled at every dawn, grinned at the power thrumming through her veins when the sun touched her skin. She thanked the animals that gave their life for her pizza and Chinese food. She smiled at each and every person she ever met, and tried her best to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, at least until they proved they didn’t deserve it. Her life was a gift, a gift that had cost the life of billions, and she was determined to honour that gift.

 

It wasn’t easy. Some days she was angry. _So_ angry. At her parents, at Kal-El, at Eliza, at Cat. Sometimes she hated being alive. She wasn’t suicidal, but she didn’t necessarily feel that burning desire to survive that seemed to be normal for humans and the other animals on this planet. If she died in battle, she would go peacefully into Rao’s light. But while she was here, she was determined to be Sunny Danvers. The sun fuelled her, after all.

 

And here she was, in the DEO, in the sunroom, listening to Alex and Winn murmuring in the background, her body filled with what felt like liquid sunlight. She could feel that the scarring had healed. There was no pain in her face anymore, no deep burning agony like someone had injected molten lead into her bones. She was healed and it was time to wake up and take the next steps in her life.

 

Her lips tingled, and she smiled. The smile widened when she didn’t feel the pull of the facial scarring. Alex had done what she’d promised. She’d healed Kara. And unless Kara was hallucinating, Alex had also _kissed_ Kara. Like, a real kiss. A kiss that had set every nerve ending on fire in the best way. Because Alex loved her. Alex. Kara took a deep breath, feeling her muscles expand and stretch. She felt healthy, strong, and vital. Nothing like the wreck she’d been for so long. The weapon that Lena had created had eaten away at her confidence as well as her face. Now that she felt like herself again physically, she felt more like herself mentally, too. Like Kara, but also like Supergirl. She took another deep breath and opened her eyes cautiously. The sun lamps at the DEO were so bright. She winced a little and then started to sit up. Before she was upright, Alex was already next to her, arm around her back, supporting Kara the way she always had.

 

“Hey, you,” she said, gently, and Kara smiled, turning her head to meet Alex’s concerned eyes. They were such an unusual colour, like brown tinged with gold and green, and when she was concerned, they were so wide and beautiful. Kara just stared, smiling.

 

“Are you okay, Kara?” she asked, and Kara nodded, just taking in Alex’s beauty. Now that she was allowed to. Alex looked back at her in confusion before blushing.

 

“Oh,” she said, swallowing, and Kara’s smile turned into a grin.

 

“Yeah,” Kara said, raising an eyebrow slightly. Alex’s blush deepened.

 

“Cough, cough,” Winn said, walking around the sun bed to take Kara’s other hand. “Nice to see you awake, champ,” he continued, punching her lightly on the arm. “Wow. Did you get even more muscly while you were asleep?” he asked, shaking his hand as if punching her even that lightly had hurt. Maybe it had; Kara felt _really_ strong. Like, stronger than she’d ever been.

 

“Hey, Winn. It’s really nice to be awake,” Kara said, and she leaned back against Alex’s supporting arm, putting her head on Alex’s shoulder.

 

“Well, I’m, uh… just going to do that thing, that thing that I was gonna do, Alex, you remember the thing I said I had to do?” Winn mumbled, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck. Kara laughed.

 

“Winn. You should go. I’m gonna make out with Alex now,” she said, and he blushed, backing out of the room and nearly falling over several pieces of expensive lab equipment on the way out. “Thank you for staying with me,” Kara said. Winn gave a little wave and smile as he got to the door, and Kara took a second to appreciate her best friend. It had taken them a long time to get where they were, but she wouldn’t trade him for anyone. Winn was the best.

 

She turned around, her legs dangling off the edge of the sunbed, to find Alex staring at her.

 

“You okay, Alex?” she asked, and Alex tilted her head, looking at Kara curiously.

 

“You seem different,” she said, and there was a hint of suspicion in her voice.

 

“Whatever you and Lena made to fix me, it worked. I feel… amazing,” Kara said, raising her arms in the air and stretching out, feeling her muscles pull pleasantly. “I feel strong. Like you put the sun in my veins.”

 

“That’s kind of what we did,” Alex admitted, and Kara could tell that she was itching to take samples, to find out what the serum had done to Kara’s blood and skin and muscles.

 

“Come here,” Kara said, and suddenly she wasn’t smiling any more. Alex looked at her doubtfully but stepped closer. Kara reached up to tuck Alex’s hair behind her ears. She’d always loved Alex’s hair; had mourned a little when Alex cut it. But she was beautiful like this, too. The sharpness of the haircut showed off the sharpness of her jaw, the perfection of her cheekbones. And the colour brought out the amber tones in her eyes. She was beautiful. She was everything.

 

“What are you looking at?” Alex asked, and she was flushed, again.

 

“You,” Kara said simply. She could look at Alex all day. Forever, even. She was Kara’s favourite thing to look at.

 

Alex was in danger of turning purple. Kara took her by the hand and pulled her close until Alex was settled between Kara’s dangling legs. Kara cupped her jaw gently.

 

“Can I kiss you, Alex?” she asked, her breath touching Alex’s lips. Alex nodded, her eyes closing, and Kara leaned forward. It was like their first kiss, beautiful and scorching and sweet and _everything_ Kara had always dreamed a kiss would be like. With the right person. With Alex.

 

“That was…wow,” Alex said, looking stunned.

 

“Yeah,” Kara agreed, leaning her forehead against Alex’s. She felt like she was home, here, in the circle of Alex’s arms. There were so many things she needed to think about, but all she wanted to do was stay here. Surely she had earned that?

 

“This is so complicated,” Alex said, quietly, and Kara huffed out a tiny breath of laughter.

 

“I know. But could we maybe have some of the good parts, before we get to the complicated stuff?” Kara asked, and Alex looked at her steadily.

 

“Yeah. Sounds like a plan,” she said, smiling. They walked out of the sun room, then, finding Hank striding down the corridor towards them.

 

“Supergirl. Good to see you up and about. I’m looking forward to you taking your job back,” he said, jovially, and Kara smiled at him.

 

“Thank you, J’onn. I owe you,” she said.

 

“You do,” he agreed. “But not just yet. You and Agent Danvers are on leave, effective immediately, until I say so. Unless we have an apocalypse on our hands, you may consider yourself on vacation until I tell you differently.”

 

“But, J’onn…” Alex began. Hank held up a hand.

 

“No arguments, Agent Danvers. You have both been through enough in this last year. You need a break. So go, spend some time together. The DEO will still be here when you come back. Major Lane is joining us for the next few weeks, and Vasquez is back from her time with SHIELD. Cadmus is all but eradicated, the Luthors responsible are in jail. Currently all we have to worry about are any rogue Fort R’ozz escapees or metahumans who might pop up. So, Agent Danvers, you are now on leave. If you are seen at the DEO any time soon, you’ll be forcibly ejected. That’s if Supergirl doesn’t do it, first,” he said, winking at Kara. She grinned back at him, and Alex pouted. Kara whispered in her ear and she went bright red. Hank pretended not to have heard, before enveloping them both in a giant hug.

 

“Any father would be proud to have you as his daughters,” he said, kissing them both on the forehead before disappearing. Alex stared after him.

 

“I know he’s a shapeshifter, but are we sure that’s not an imposter?” she breathed. Kara laughed.

 

“I think that he’s just relieved. I know I am. I thought I was going to be like that forever,” Kara said, touching her face gently. “I could have learned to live with the scar, but the pain – it was taking everything away. My strength, my courage. I felt like I couldn’t fight any more,” she said, and Alex turned to her, kissing her cheek gently.

 

“It’s gone, now. And the serum – I’m pretty sure it could cure anything for you. It might even bring you back from the dead,” Alex said, and she seemed to be perfectly serious. That sparked something in Kara, but she decided to think about it another time.

 

“So, Agent Danvers. Are you ready to go home, or should I call Hank back so he can forcibly eject you?” Kara asked, playfully. Alex smiled.

 

“Let’s go home, Supergirl,” she said, and Kara’s heart soared. She picked Alex up, bridal-style, ignoring her protests, and shot out of the DEO through the large balcony that had been left open for just that purpose. They were above the clouds in seconds, a sonic boom in their wake, and Alex turned her face in to Kara’s chest, shielding herself from the force of the air on her face.

 

“Sorry,” Kara said, realising that her speed was a little excessive for a passenger. But Alex just smiled up at her, making her heart stutter. Kara slowed down and hung in the air, hovering for a long time, just letting the sun sink into her. She closed her eyes and smiled in complete bliss. She had missed this so much – flying, the freedom of it, and the freedom that came with feeling no pain. She’d never take that for granted again.

 

“You… you look so beautiful, with the sun on your skin. I… I’ve never seen you like this,” Alex said, looking up at her in awe.

 

“You don’t usually fly with me,” Kara said.

 

“You’re amazing, Kara,” Alex said. She looked awed.

 

“Whatever I am, Alex, it’s because of you. You’re the reason I have any strength. You’re the reason I fight. I might never have become Supergirl if it wasn’t for you. You’re my hero,” Kara said, simply, sincerely, and Alex blushed.

 

“Take me home, Supergirl,” she said, suddenly.

 

Kara nodded.

 

“Yes, Ma’am,” she said, before heading, more slowly this time, to her apartment. When they arrived there, flying in through the open window, Alex stood awkwardly in the kitchen, her hands shoved in her pockets. Kara was still in her Supergirl suit. She moved at superspeed to change into a tank and shorts, taking advantage of the heat, and she felt Alex’s eyes on her, then.

 

“You okay, Alex?” she asked, moving closer, while Alex looked at the floor, shifting awkwardly.

 

“I… I just worry. I am worried. About what people will say,” Alex said, and Kara sighed.

 

“Alex. You’re not my sister. Not by blood. And we’ve always been close. Closer than sisters. Maggie thought we were a couple when she met us, did you know that? That’s why I told her who I was. We are who we are. I have always loved you, Alex,” Kara said, softly, moving closer to Alex and touching her hand gently. Alex smiled at her, but it was weak.

 

“Alex. I would never want to do anything to hurt you. I would never want you to do anything you don’t want to. But I’m in love with you. If you don’t feel anything for me other than as a sister, you need to let me know. I will always be here, I will always be here for you. But I’ll need some time to heal from that, because I don’t…”

 

Alex silenced her with a kiss. It wasn’t chaste, and it more than confirmed her feelings. They stood wrapped in each other’s arms for a long moment before Alex spoke again.

 

“I have doubts, that’s all. I have fears. It was hard enough realising that I was gay, never mind that I’m in love with you, the woman who I was supposed to think of as a sister. It doesn’t mean I don’t want this. I want this so much. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up so we can talk about this, so we can… you’re everything to me, Kara. I want this. I want you,” Alex said, impassioned and pleading. Kara leaned down to kiss her again.

 

A moment later Kara was pinned against the wall next to the kitchen, Alex holding her wrists up above her head as she kissed Kara’s neck, biting and sucking her way down towards her prominent collarbones. Kara took in a deep breath. Alex’s mouth was touching her skin and Alex’s body was against hers, hip to shoulder, and it was incredible. More than she could have ever hoped for.

 

“Take me to bed, Supergirl,” Alex said, in a growl. Kara lifted her off her feet, letting Alex wrap her legs around Kara’s waist, and carried her to the bedroom at super-speed before reaching over to switch on the red sun lamps LCorp had installed in her apartment. She was kissing Alex deeply, her hands under Alex’s black polo shirt, and she could feel every scar from every time Alex had thrown herself into danger to save Kara or a civilian or one of her team. Each one was a mark of bravery. Kara only had a few scars from when she was a child, from before she landed on this planet with its yellow sun. It was a huge turn-on to feel those marks of bravery on Alex’s skin, and she set Alex gently on the bed before climbing on top of her to kiss her again.

 

“I love you,” she murmured, kissing Alex’s neck, and Alex shuddered as Kara licked her just behind her ear.

 

“I love you, Kara,” Alex said, before pulling Kara’s body flush against hers and kissing her again, sloppily, their tongues moving against each other feverishly.

 

“Can I?” she asked, moving back and pulling at the bottom of Kara’s tank top tentatively. Kara pulled it off in one easy motion, forgetting that she was topless underneath it until Alex gaped at her.

 

“Your turn,” Kara said, and Alex pulled her DEO-issue polo shirt off, then the bra underneath. It was Kara’s turn to gape, then, because Alex was so beautiful. So, so beautiful. She leaned down to kiss each scar on Alex’s chest and abdomen.

 

They moved together like they always had, effortlessly and in concert. They found the right position to touch one another, to be inside one another, to move together and come together, eyes locked on each other. It was new, it was different, but it felt right. It felt like home, and Kara couldn’t stop smiling afterwards.

 

“I love you so much,” she said, tracing designs on Alex’s skin with a finger reverently. “You’re so amazing.”

 

“I didn’t know… that it could feel like that,” Alex admitted, and Kara’s smile widened.

 

“It was amazing,” she breathed, kissing Alex again. “It was always going to be amazing, with you and me.”

 

“Always so sunny, Danvers,” Alex said, running her fingers through Kara’s long hair.

 

“At least I won’t have to change my name when we get married,” Kara said, conversationally. She laughed as Alex spluttered. “Relax. I don’t expect a proposal. Not yet, anyway,” she said, and Alex groaned.

 

“You’re going to want a white wedding, and all the floofy gowns, and tulle and other fabrics that I’ve never heard of,” Alex said, half-ranting, and Kara felt, for a moment, like her heart was going to stop.

 

“You would marry me?” she asked, shocked.

 

“What? That’s what you got from that? I don’t want to look like a six-year-old dressed up like a ballerina, Kara, so you better start thinking about compromises, okay?” Alex said, her face serious, and Kara laughed.

 

“Just when I think I couldn’t love you more,” she murmured, before moving downwards and stopping Alex’s ranting about not wanting to be dressed like a marshmallow rather suddenly by scooping her hands under Alex’s ass and taking Ms Grant’s advice – to dive. Alex didn’t speak for some time, at least not in intelligible words. She screamed plenty, though, and Kara was satisfied with her own efforts when she was done. Alex was collapsed, one hand thrown over her face.

 

“I think my head is numb,” she said, as Kara kissed her. “You’re all sticky.”

 

“You love it,” Kara said, and Alex turned into her arms, wrapping them up together.

 

“I love you,” Alex said, sincerely, before falling asleep in between breaths. Kara held her for a while, letting Alex’s steady breathing lull her into a half-daze. She couldn’t remember ever being this happy, or at least not since her life was a lot different, a lot simpler. She’d been a child then, however. Now she was an adult with her own life – two of them, really – and someone she truly loved with all of her heart. Maybe one day there would be repercussions to her decision to alter earth’s timeline to save Alex, but as far as Kara Zor-El was concerned, it was more than worth it. Her world would be nothing without Alex in it. Maybe not everyone would understand that, but that was fine. As long as they both understood what was between them, everyone else could work it out for themselves. Kara was happy, and Alex was happy, and that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did almost leave this here, but I wanted to finish up a few threads that I felt like were still dangling, and also I don't know how to leave well enough alone. So there will be at least another chapter, if not two.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the night before, and a look into the future

* * *

 

When Alex woke up, Kara was asleep, out for the count completely. That didn’t happen often, because she had so much energy, given that she was a living solar battery. But last night they’d been under the red sun lamps, and they’d been up most of the night, and Alex thought that if Kara felt half as sore as she did this morning, she might have some idea of what it was to be human. Her left hip was aching, from when she’d had her legs more or less wrapped around Kara’s neck.

 

The sex was phenomenal. Of course it was. Because Kara was literally out of this world, and red sun lamps or not, she was still just as beautiful and stronger than any human had any right to be. With more stamina, and a surprisingly inventive mind when it came to sex. Alex tried hard not to think about how _that_ might have come about. She knew Kara had been with Lena and she didn’t want to think about it any further. The thought of Kara being with anyone else made Alex so uneasy and ill that she wondered how she could have failed to identify her jealousy, before. Because it wasn’t a new thing. Kara’s prom date, her college boyfriend, Adam, James… each one of them had given Alex that same feeling. She’d put it down to being protective of her sister, back then, but how she’d been so oblivious? Well. She’d been oblivious about her sexuality generally, believing herself to be broken rather than realising that it just wasn’t men that she was into. Not that she considered people on the asexual spectrum to be broken – she was a new member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and had a lot to learn about the different sexualities and gender identities within it. But it was easy for Alex to believe that she was wrong and broken because that’s how Eliza had always made her feel.

 

She watched as Kara did an adorable little shuffle/snuffle combo in her sleep and smiled, a wide, ridiculous smile that she would have been embarrassed for any of her colleagues to see. Because Kara made her so fucking happy, and this night together had just proved it. They had obstacles ahead. Alex still heard her mother’s voice in her head telling her to ‘look after her sister’. But Eliza had been surprisingly cool when they talked – not cool as in distant, like usual, but cool as in actually okay with the idea of Kara and Alex dating. That would make things a lot easier. And like Kara said, they didn’t even have to change their surnames if they got married. Which, let’s face it, they probably would. Alex couldn’t imagine a thing on this earth or beyond that would make her not want to spend the rest of her life with Kara. There was the DEO, but J’onn probably knew everything that went on because he couldn’t always switch off his telepathy and certain people (Winn, for example) were terrible projectors, or so J’onn said. Vasquez would probably rib them a little about it, but she was a good sort, and would never say anything to upset any of them. James might have a few less-than-positive things to say, if he was feeling jealous. But he could suck it. He had a chance with Kara, and she broke up with him, and that sucked for him but it was what it was. Kara didn’t love him. She loved Alex. And Alex loved her.

 

She tucked Kara’s hair behind her ear and smoothed out a wrinkle in her brow. Kara had always been beautiful. When she was a child she looked like an angel. That’s what Alex had thought the first time she saw Kara in her white robes, landing beside Superman in their front yard. She was an actual angel, fallen to earth.

 

“Hey,” Kara said, suddenly, waking at Alex’s touch. “I missed you,” she said, smiling.

 

“You’re such a weirdo, Kara. I was right here,” Alex said, laughing.

 

“Yeah, you were,” Kara said, dreamily.

 

The way she was looking at Alex – it made her eyes fill with tears and something caught in her chest. She was so beautiful.

 

“I love you,” Alex said, and she didn’t think she could have stopped herself from saying the words if she’d tried. She just felt it, so strongly. She loved this woman and Winn had been right, when he said what he said the day before. It didn’t matter what happened, what things they had to face to be together. Kara was worth it.

 

“I love you, Alex,” Kara said, her eyes dark and serious. She pulled Alex to her and kissed her, slow and deep and thorough. Alex couldn’t speak after that kiss. She was breathless and wordless.

 

“So, do we get to go somewhere for this holiday J’onn has sent us on?” Kara said, eventually, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Because there is this bakery in Paris that we could go to. They do the best macarons. And there’s a place in Hong Kong and they have the best dumplings…”

 

“Kara. Relax. Right now I want to be here, with you. Right here, in this bed, okay? Maybe in a few days we can go somewhere, if you want to? But right now, I don’t want to be anywhere but here,” Alex said, and Kara’s smiled widened.

 

“Okay, Agent Danvers. Time to read me my rights,” Kara said.

 

Alex breathed in sharply, an almost gasp, and Kara smirked.

 

“Do you like that? When I call you Agent?” she asked, holding out her hands, crossed at the wrists. “I’m handing myself in to your custody, Agent,” she said, and while part of Alex was shaking her head at the corniness of the lines, part of her was also hopelessly aroused. She fell on Kara with a growl, muttering something about naughty superheroes and making sure she obeyed the law from now on. Things got a little out of hand, Alex would admit later, but at the time the few bruises from the handcuffs that Kara eventually put on her were totally worth it.

 

***

 

It was almost six months later, and the real Supergirl was once again flying the skies of National City. Cat Grant had returned, her sabbatical over, and was ruling over CatCo media with an iron fist. And a new Kryptonian hero had joined the ranks of the DEO, a mysterious woman in black. Identified only with a Kryptonian glyph on her chest, the mysterious woman was working alongside Supergirl and the Green Martian to keep National City safe.

 

Alex was watching as Kara talked to Lena Luthor at Noonan’s for the first time since the lab accident that had almost killed her. Alex was sitting at a table nearby with Astra, the woman in black. Once Kara had sufficiently recovered from her injuries and was ready to return to work, she had asked for Hank’s permission to find Astra’s pod and bring her back using the serum Alex and Lena had developed. The op had taken some serious planning, and some reprogramming of both Kal and Kara’s pods, because Hank had refused to let her go alone to retrieve Astra’s pod. Alex and Winn and the rest of the DEO waited with bated breath as Kara and J’onn went into space, suited up with enough oxygen and food to last them for days if something went wrong, so the DEO had enough time to come up with a way to retrieve them. None of their additional planning turned out to be necessary, however. It all went flawlessly, and Kara and J’onn carried Astra’s pod reverently into the DEO sunroom. Her body looked the same as it had the day Alex had stabbed her with the Kryptonite sword. They injected her with the serum and watched carefully for a week as she recovered slowly under the sunlamps, before she woke with a gasp. There was a small incident where she tried to throttle Alex, but Kara was able to head that off pretty quickly by telling Astra that Non was dead, the Kryptonians were gone, and that the human she was strangling was Kara’s bond-mate. Astra had calmed down fairly quickly after that, and after a long convalescence, mental as well as physical, she had begun working for the DEO, not only using her powers but also developing new technologies and strategies for combating global warming and other environmental problems. She was a dedicated officer and a friend, now.

 

“Will she kill the Luthor, do you think?” Astra asked, casually.

 

Alex had just taken a sip of her espresso, and managed to shoot some of it out of her nose.

 

“Wow. No, Astra. That’s not why she’s here. She’s just trying to get closure, after what happened.”

 

“Ah. My therapist has spoken of this closure,” Astra said, thoughtfully, handing Alex a napkin absentmindedly. “Surely the death of her enemy would provide this?”

 

“Um, yeah, I suppose. Would you rather have killed me?” Alex asked.

 

Astra considered it.

 

“In some ways, I believe it would have been simpler. But my niece loves you deeply, and I do not wish to cause her any more hurt,” Astra said.

 

“Okay. Wow. That was honest,” Alex said. Astra could still surprise her.

 

“Do not mistake me, Alexandra. You are a worthy foe. I do not blame you for killing me. I would have done the same in your shoes. But a clean death is a definite closure, is it not?” Astra asked.

 

There was a small crease at the corner of one eye, and that’s when Alex realised Astra was teasing her.

 

“You asshole,” Alex said, punching Astra on the arm and then cursing herself for punching a Kryptonian. “You have been spending too much time with Cat Grant,” she grumbled.

 

“The little Cat is a surprising diversion,” Astra said.

 

Alex groaned.

 

“Please, no details,” she begged, and Astra smiled. Alex was in for a fun time until Kara returned, she could tell.

***

 

“So, how have you been?” Lena asked, before wincing. “Sorry. I… I don’t know what to say, other than sorry,” she managed. She looked pale and tired as she always did, but also she seemed calmer and less fraught than she had back when she and Kara had been… whatever they had been.

 

Kara smiled at her, a little tentatively.

 

“I’m fine, now. Physically,” she qualified.

 

Lena’s face fell a little.

 

“Sorry doesn’t even… begin to cover it, Kara. You never gave me any reason to believe that you would ever hurt me, or do anything that would hurt anyone, if you were in your right mind. I just got so frightened when I thought of the power you had, how much you could hurt people – hurt me – and I just… I don’t know. It seems really trite to say I cracked, but I think I did a little. After everything with my mother and Lex, I was facing the threat they had warned me about. I don’t even remember half of that time. When I wasn’t with you, I was half-crazy, I think. But when you were there I knew you’d never hurt anyone. I’ve been having therapy – a lot, actually – and they’re helping me, a lot, to work through what happened. I never meant to do anything to hurt you, Kara. I can’t even… I can’t wrap my brain around it, when I think…” Lena trailed off, her head dropping into her hands, elbows on the table.

 

“Lena. I won’t say I understand, because honestly, I only ever judged you by your actions and I always hoped you would do the same for me. But I understand fear. I understand what people do to survive. So, just… take this as a lesson. You always told me that you feared becoming like Lex or your mother. I think this was a brush with that, with who you could be if you lost control of your fear. Please don’t let it destroy you, Lena. You are a good person. I really believe that,” Kara said, and despite clearly not wanting to touch Lena, she did meet her eyes squarely.

 

“Kara, how can you even say that? I almost…” Lena realised she was almost shouting and dropped her voice, suddenly. “I almost killed you. I almost killed Supergirl, and you’re, what? Forgiving me?”

 

Kara looked at her, puzzled.

 

“Yes. I forgive you,” she said, tilting her head in confusion.

 

“You can’t forgive me, Kara,” Lena protested, her face screwing up. She choked back what sounded like a sob.

 

“I can, and I have,” Kara said quietly, looking at her own hands, clasped in her lap. “Someone once told me that forgiveness isn’t something you give to someone else; it’s something you give to yourself. I don’t want to live my whole life hating you for what happened, Lena. I want to live my life. I want it to be a good one. I don’t blame you for what you did, not anymore. And the scars, they’ll heal,” she said, rubbing her cheekbone unconsciously with one hand. “It’s time to let it go, Lena. Move on, and be happy. I want that for you.”

 

Kara looked up, meeting Lena’s eyes, and she flinched a little when Lena moved a hand towards her, but she still met the other woman’s eyes. She meant what she said.

 

Lena looked down, then, clearly collecting herself, and Kara took a drink from her coffee to allow her some time to think. She really didn’t blame Lena. She was a little frightened of her, now, she would admit. But she didn’t blame Lena. It had happened and it was bad and it was over. And the way Lena was being scrutinised by the DEO, nothing like that would happen again. There was also the small matter of Lena’s romance with a certain Lucy Lane, the tiny Director of the DEO’s desert base. Nothing got past Lucy, and if Lena started to wander down the wrong path again, Lucy would bring her back.

 

“You know, Lucy told me that you would forgive me,” Lena said, still looking down. She was clearly crying, and Kara politely averted her eyes, pushing a napkin towards Lena. Her usual response to tears was a hug, but not now. “She said you were too good not to forgive me.”

 

“It’s not… that’s not it, Lena. If I don’t forgive you, then I’m living back then, when it happened. Letting the pain that’s already gone linger. I’ve already lost a whole world. I don’t need to take on a burden like that, hating someone for a mistake – even a really big one, like this. I mean, that’s what happened to Lex. To your mother, too. They were obsessed with wrongs, real or imagined, I don’t even know, and they went crazy with it. I just want to be happy, Lena. A whole world died and I got to live. I want to honour their lives with mine, and I can’t do that by hatred.”

 

Lena was staring at her.

 

“You really are that good, aren’t you? I don’t think I ever realised how much of a good person you are, Kara. You sacrifice so much for other people. You have this huge loss and you honour them, you live for them, instead of being sad and angry about how much you’ve lost. I don’t think I’ve ever really understood the Super thing as much as I do right now,” Lena said, in almost a whisper, sounding awed.

 

Kara blushed.

 

“That’s… I get angry, Lena. I get sad. But I just feel a responsibility, a duty. My parents, my family, my world – they all live on, in me. I’m the last daughter of my planet and I just want that to be a good thing,” Kara said, shrugging.

 

Lena was still staring.

 

“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” she said, finally. “I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like you, Kara Danvers. Thank you for your forgiveness. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, you only have to name it. I know you probably don’t want to keep in touch but I will always be your friend, Kara. I hope your life is a happy one,” Lena said, and she stood, keeping her hands by her sides.

 

Kara stood too.

 

“If you ever need anything, I will be there,” Kara said, fiddling with her glasses. “From either of us,” she said, significantly. “You’re right, I’m sorry that I don’t want to… stay in touch. Not now, at least. Maybe in future. But for now, Lena, I wish you well. Tell Lucy I said hi.”

 

Kara awkwardly stuck her hand out and Lena took it carefully, delicately, and shook it once before letting go.

 

“Thank you, Kara,” she said, almost shyly. “Thank you.”

 

She left, nodding at Alex and Astra as she left Noonan’s, and Kara sat back down at the table for a minute, finishing her coffee and staring off into space. Her therapist had said this was an important step, and she was glad to have taken it. Lena had become one of her nightmares – she dreamt of them sleeping together and Lena turning to plunge a Kryptonite dagger in her heart, or forcing green liquid down her throat or into her veins – it varied. She hoped those would stop, now, since she’d faced her fear. Lena couldn’t hurt her – wouldn’t hurt her – and she knew that, intellectually. She just had to believe it, now.

 

“You okay, honey?” Alex asked, quietly, standing slightly behind her. Kara nodded.

 

“Astra left to go see Cat. You doin’ okay?” Alex asked, sitting opposite Kara.

 

“Yeah,” Kara said, still looking at her lap.

 

“So, no would be the real answer, then?” Alex asked, quietly, taking Kara’s hands and holding them in hers loosely.

 

Kara laughed, a bitter sound, and Alex squeezed her hands.

 

“She really is sorry, you know,” Alex said, “for what it’s worth.”

 

“I know. I know she is. And she didn’t mean to do it. I mean, I’ve talked to my therapist enough about it by now. Lena was terrified of me. I just… Alex, she carried on sleeping with me, and at the same time she was making something that could kill me. How do you get past that?” Kara asked, her eyes appealing to Alex for answers.

 

“You know, we can hide things sometimes, even from ourselves,” Alex said, her eyes clear and sympathetic. “When you’re frightened, things sometimes don’t make sense the way they should. So you don’t always make the right decisions. I honestly think she loved you, Kara. And at the same time, she was frightened of you. I don’t think there was any real intent there to hurt you. I don’t honestly believe she ever would have used it against you. If it hadn’t malfunctioned, I don’t even think you’d ever have known about it.”

 

“I guess,” Kara said, but her frown wasn’t as deep as it had been. The idea that Lena had been playing her the whole time had been bothering her more than she’d ever let anyone know. “Do you really think that?” she asked, looking hopeful.

 

“Of course. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise,” Alex said, with a half-smile.

 

Kara couldn’t help but smile back. Alex’s smiles always had that effect on her.

 

“So. You wanna come home with me? Fool around a little? Forget about all this?” Alex asked, with a wicked smirk.

 

Kara’s stomach clenched. Alex still had that effect on her. Hell, Alex had always had that effect on her, she’d just never been able to do anything about it.

 

“Yes. I would like that very much,” she said.

 

“You’re such an alien dork,” Alex said, laughing.

 

“Yeah. But I’m your alien dork,” Kara said.

 

Alex stood, offering Kara her hand.

 

“Yeah. Always,” was her reply. She was smiling, but her eyes were dark and intent.

 

Kara shivered, and pulled Alex along in her wake, careful not to use superspeed. She was suddenly _really_ eager to get home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short epilogue to go. Thank you all so much for reading


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a short epilogue to tie this all up.

* * *

 

_1 year later_

“So, Kara. You’ve been back working as Supergirl for almost 8 months, and you’ve been in a relationship with Alex now for almost 12 months. How are you feeling about things?” Dr Nelson asked.

 

“I… I feel great, actually,” Kara said.

 

“And you’re telling the truth!” Dr Nelson said, chuckling. “No crinkle.”

 

“Damn that crinkle…” Kara said, frowning.

 

“Anyway. So you’re doing great. Tell me about it.”

 

“Well, the Supergirl thing – it’s really pretty routine these days, with the lack of a supervillain enemy like Cadmus, thank Rao. And I… I’ve been talking to Lena, and we’re actually friends, sort of. She even gave me a hug the last time I saw her. And I wasn’t scared.”

 

“That’s really great, Kara. You’re making some real progress,” Dr Nelson said. “And what about Alex?”

 

“We set a date. We’re going to the Fortress on my earth birthday to have the bonding ceremony. And Kal thinks he’s worked out a way to give her some or all of our abilities, so that it’s safe for her to carry a baby who’s half-Kryptonian, if we decide to have a family. He’s been working on it for Lois.”

 

“That’s great news. And what about the nightmares?” the doctor asked.

 

Kara frowned.

 

“I… they’re still happening. Alex helps. She wakes me and she makes me cocoa and holds me until I stop crying.”

 

“Are they still the same?” Dr Nelson asked, making a note of something while looking at Kara over his glasses.

 

“Mostly. I don’t dream of the accident so much, anymore. It’s more of Krypton, and my aunt dying. Even though I know she’s still here. I guess it’s because I know she’s at risk now, using her abilities like I use mine. She could die.”

 

“But so could you,” Dr Nelson pointed out.

 

“But it’s different. She died already. I literally had to bring her back to life, months after she died. I don’t think I could lose her again. No-one else speaks Kryptonese fluently, no-one but her and me. Kal tries but his accent…” Kara shuddered.

 

“I know. But fear of loss is always part of love. I know that, for you, you’ve lost more than anyone, Kara. But you can’t be afraid of it all the time. That means you don’t get to enjoy the love part,” Dr Nelson said.

 

“I know, I know,” Kara said. “I really am trying,” she said. “It’s just really hard, when you know what it’s like to lose everything.”

 

“I understand that,” Dr Nelson said, nodding.

 

After their session, Kara went outside and made a quick change in an alleyway, flying straight up into the clouds so fast that no human could have seen her. She hovered just above the clouds, eyes that could see galaxies far beyond the earth taking in the beauty of the sunlight cutting through the cloud cover and lighting up the city below. Kara floated, hovering above the city that had become her home, letting the sunlight fill her up. Since her infusion with Alex and Lena’s miracle serum, she had been even stronger than before, and each time she basked in the sunlight like this, it helped her feel better both mentally and physically. Like Prozac, Alex said, but for aliens. She let the sunlight fill her up, sending a quick prayer to a red sun in another galaxy, before gliding back to earth, back home to the woman she loved – the woman who loved her. Alex might think it was the sunlight that gave Kara her powers, but Kara knew better. She knew that it was Alex who made her strong, made her invincible. She made her way back to their apartment, the wind whipping her hair back from her face, and Kara Zor-El Danvers smiled. She was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the wonderful welcome to the Supergirl fandom. I have some other fics half-ready, so I hope to be back soon. Thank you all for reading. :)


End file.
